Leading the Math Dept

It has been difficult being the SIC leader in a department that isn't too excited about the idea of transferring everything into a one-to-one world of teaching.  It's not that they are against it, but I think that the way that math is taught (or the way we think it should be taught) and our new curriculum make it difficult to combine with technology.  I've been struggling all year with how to convince them and myself that it can be done and done successfully.

When we met as a department and went over things we just started researching things that we could use easily in a classroom as an extension to help our students.  I think the idea of being completely paperless in a math classroom will never happen, but if we can help our students solidify their learning by using technology then it's worth the effort.  We instantly started talking about Geogebra.  It's offered on the chromebooks, which is awesome, but really is only applicable for Geometry and maybe the Algebra 1.5 courses.

The more we searched the more websites we found that seemed to be just tailored towards elementary education.  Kahn Academy would be a really awesome website to use.  We discussed the idea of a backwards classroom, but still have it all be in the classroom.  The idea was that the first thing we would do is have students watch a video on Kahn Academy (as a warm up) that gave instruction.  Then we would use the remaining classroom to help solidify what was taught on that.  Even if reteaching is involved, it would be good for them to see it and hear it in a different way and from a different person.  I actually got really excited about this idea.  If students are watching a video on their own with headphones, they have less distractions and are probably able to watch and listen a bit better.

At the end of our meeting I know that I was much more excited about the idea of using technology in my classroom.  Even the idea of maybe giving our finals on google was brought up.  I think we still have to work on that a bit more.  It's going to be very exciting next year in the math dept.  We are all making that a goal of ours and look forward to increasing the use of technology in an affective way.