who to teach to?

In my level 2 SIMMS class I have 17 kids. Three of them are honor students. Eight or ten of them are average students who work really hard at it, and the rest are less than motivated kids who may not get it if they tried their hardest. They are determined they cannot do it so why try. My question to all of you is which of these 3 groups do you teach to? Thanks Jim

First 2 days of the school year

At Lawrence High classes started last Thursday the 27th. I am teaching a level2 and a level 4 in two of my teaching blocks. I should explain that at Lawrence level 4 is the third year of SIMMS for kids who are headed to calculus. The 4th year is called level 6. It is a bit con fusing but works for us. I decided to start my level 4 class with Hurry! Hurry! Step Right Up a geometric probability module that is fairly quick and kinda fun to do for a first module. We played a coin drop game the first day where the kids dropped dimes on 3cm a square board that they made. It went great. They acted as if they had never left last spring. We collected a lot of data on the experimental probability and compared it to theoretical probability. Today (Monday) we will continue on with expected value. As much as I enjoy my vacations it is a blast being back and playing with the kids. We are doing a lot of laughing. I will post more later on the expected value.

My level 2 class is starting with the Pyramid module because most of them did not get to it in level 1. This class is less motivated than my 4 class. I will write about our similar triangles later.

I look forward to reading blogs from all of you as you get your SIMMS classes going. What a great way to share thoughts and concerns. Have a great week. Jim

Newark Retrospect

Hi , just got back to Vt. from an amazing week in Newark. These teachers are real heros, working under difficult circumstances. Many don't even know what level they will be teaching next week when school starts, and they haven't got books yet, and yet they were cheerful and optimistic and excited. My hats off to them. A really amazing group of people. Many thanks to Kathy , their curriculum co-ordinator who has worked so hard to make this happen for them and has gone to bat and put this all together. I am truly humbled and wish them great success. Sue L

trainings week of August 24

I understand that there are trainings on both the east coast and the west coast. It would be great to hear from these trainings as they are going on. If there are trainings in other areas I have not mentioned please let us know. Here at Lawrence High in Fairfield, Maine we start classes this week, so I will not be involved in any of the trainings. If any of you out there know of any SIMMS teachers that are not on this blog and want to be please have them send me their email address to jim.willis.43@hotmail.com and I will get them set up. Also I am in the process of setting up a file share site so we all can post and share SIMMS things that we create. I look forward to really getting this up and running. Thanks so much, Jim in Maine

SIMMS Perspective

I don't know if you are all district-level coordinators or what, but that is the role I play in my district. We are entering our 4th year of implementation (rolling out one level each year), so Level 4 will be new to us for 2009-2010. I have 50 teachers participating in training next week - all four levels - to see new guides we've developed to demonstrate the alignment of SIMMS with Washington Math Standards. The guides are also designed to support the work of PLCs.

If any of you have questions about what we've done over the last three years, let me know. If you have any ideas to share, let me know that, too, as it's always good to hear what other folks are doing with SIMMS.

SIMMS the Hard Way

Hi,

We're going to be training about 60 teachers next week for SIMMS Levels 1, 2, and 3. I can't imagine a less auspicious start. We haven't gotten the texts (which were "rush" ordered about six weeks ago . . .), no materials kits, and we've been bumped from our large conference room to a much smaller one. The only good thing is that we have a great consultant - Sue.

This should be most interesting.

From Kathy, the frustrated supervisor.

A new beginning for SIMMS teachers

Hi all. This my first attempt at blogging. My purpose is to try to set up a nation wide discussion for and by teachers of SIMMS integrated math. I know if you stumble onto this it is hard to imagine being so fortunate. Holy crap, a math blog. Classes for me will start a week from today August 27. I know that the fortunate people in Casper have already started. This semester I will be teaching a level 3 class, a level 4 class, and a year long level 1 class. As I move along I will share my successes, failures and kind of just OK stuff with you. If I am not blogging at least once a week please give me a pretty good kick in the butt. This will be my math class journal. If there are any specific topics you would like to see chatted up please let me know. As a lot of you know I am a pretty good bull blogger. Till next time. Jim