I am going to stop trying to come up with the perfect Blog Post, and just start blogging, and see where that goes. Might mean you might want to tune out. Might mean you might want to tune in. Hmm... I guess it will be interesting (TO ME) regardless. At first I was feeling bad about the possibility of posting something "not worthy" of a post-- but I guess no one is obligated to read.
OK--
I teach at Sturgis Charter Public School. Its motto is IB (International Baccalaureate) for ALL. Every student takes all IB level classes in their junior and senior year. It is a charter school, but students enter through a blind lottery system. The only requirement is that the students live on or near Cape Cod. Although in many IB schools, the IB classes are reserved for the top academic students, at our school ALL students take the IB classes. I teach the lowest level of the IB math for juniors and seniors. It is called Math Studies. It may be the lowest level of the IB math curriculum, but it is no walk in the park.
Here is an example of a question from our last test:
My point is that Math Studies reaches differential calculus. True-- we don't go too deep-- just a chapter... but I love that my students are at least EXPOSED to the topic, and know that it is not as intimidating as people make it out to be. Many of the students in my math classes, had they been in other schools, may have opted to take less math (some school districts don't require four years of math) or they may have been stuck in remedial math classes. There are pros and cons to having them take an IB level math class, but exposing them to calculus and proving that it is not impossible is definitely a PRO.
Thought for the day. The best thing about the International Baccalaureate curriculum is the internal assessment. The IA. Leading students through the process of writing their Math Studies IA and then grading it was, in many ways more painful, than giving birth. (I have three kids. I can speak with authority on this comparison.) In the IB curriculum, students must write what is essentially a term paper in each of their classes between their junior and senior years. Even in math. Every one of my students wrote an approximately 10 page quantitative paper to critically analyze the relationship between two or more data sets of their choice.
I have been teaching for 20 years. Before teaching at Sturgis, with the IB curriculum, I had never had to teach students how to USE the math I have taught to so that they could write a formal argument using statistics to support their statements. To write their IA's studentsHAD to learn Excel, MathType, Google Sheets. And so did I. These skills were all items on a wish list that I wanted to be able to teach someday.... Because of the IA they are now items on a list that I know how to teach.
This year was PAINFUL. I gave some great lessons. I gave a lot of mediocre lesssons. I learned a ton. I felt a lot of guilt. Every day I questioned my ability to lead the students through this writing process. My guilt caused me to extend deadlines... and created a vicious cycle of stress and procrastination.
HOWEVER.... I just turned in the grades for the IA's. I feel like I have grown a lot as a teacher. I am not proud of my Math Studies lessons... yet. We survived this year. I hope to do much more than that next year.
This is a veteran math teacher, signing off.. moving up the learning curve and watching my students do the same.
Loved reading your reflection!
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