Stats, Common Core Style

This marks my 100th post on my new blog. So I'm adding the label "milestone" to this post -- and I think I'll count it as "A Day in the Life" as well. With the cancellation of the minimum days, there's no natural choice regarding which day I should count as my monthly post, so I'll just choose today. (And besides, today's the 18th -- recall that on the old blog in 2016-17, the 18th was my original monthly posting day.) 8:00  -- My Advisory class arrives. I admit that of all my classes, Advisory is the one I write about the least on the blog. After all, I'm a math teacher, so of course I think the most about what's going on with my math students. But this is a great opportunity to blog about my morning senior Advisory class as well. First of all, I've been trying to have two graded assignments in this class per week. One of them is some sort of financial literacy lesson, and the other is a character SEL lesson. Both lessons are done in...

Today is the state math test here in California, and so I'll do "A Day in the Life" today. Three weeks ago, I focused on the majority of my students -- the seniors -- as they took there California Science Test. But this time, the focus switches to me as a teacher and test proctor since again, the most of my students are seniors who are not  testing today. 8:00  -- I arrive at the special classroom that has been set up for testing, along with fifteen juniors. Of these 15 students, two of them are in my own math classes (one girl from Calculus, one guy from Ethnostats). As I set up the online CAT (computer-adaptive test) for the students, I can't help but think about the testing mishaps I had back at the old charter school five years ago. First of all, recall that I never quite made it to the day of the actual test. Instead, most of my interaction with the testing website is related to SBAC Prep and all the practice tests that I had to give each week. I had trouble figu...

Today is the first day of state standardized testing at my school. Yes, with the pandemic waning and things getting back to normal, it means that spring season is testing season in schools around the US. Here is California, high school students are tested in math, language arts, and science. While only juniors (along with grades 3-8) take the math and ELA assessments, the science test is supposed to be taken in grades 5, 8, and "once in high school" -- it's up to the discretion of each district to decide which year students take the high school science test. Well apparently, my district chose senior year  for the California Science Test (or CAST). And today is CAST day. With most of my students being seniors, it means that most of my students spend their day on the big science test. According to Tina Cardone's original list, a "state testing day" is one of the special days for which we should do "A Day in the Life." And since there's no monthly...

Today is Pi Day, a key day on the mathematical calendar. It's also the monthly minimum day for March, and hence the lone day that I will post during this current "Little March." As I usually do on monthly blogging days, I will discuss my school day in "A Day in the Life" format. But first, many things have happened to me during this three-week blogging break, and so there's so much to catch up on here in this post: First, those cancelled school days on January 10th-11th are catching up to us. The number of days in the school year needs to be 180, not 178, and so the district must appeal to LA County to avoid having to make up those days in June. In anticipation of a decision later this week, the district cancelled Open House and the associated minimum day last week so that we won't be short on instructional minutes (but monthly minimum days for staff meetings are unaffected). I was going to blog on Open House night as the other special "Little March...

Well, fortunately the best case scenario occurred -- I received a negative COVID-19 test on Monday, and so I was allowed to return to school yesterday. I waited until today to post, since Wednesday is the day when Ethnostats classes meet. Tuesday isn't my regular posting day this semester. And as I mentioned in my last post, I will count this as my monthly posting day. I use "A Day in the Life" to discuss my first two days back after what turned out to be a three-day absence. I call it "Damage Control" -- that is, I seek to control the damage to my plans caused by missing these days. 8:00  -- Zero period arrives. This is my morning Advisory class. I don't write about my Advisory class much on the blog. My focus on this blog is math in general and Stats in particular, and even when I do "A Day in the Life," I usually write about minimum days or Mondays when Advisory doesn't meet. So let's finally take a look at what's happening in Adviso...

Today is the first day of the second semester. Therefore I'm doing "A Day in the Life," for the special day "first day after winter break." (Note -- on the blog calendar, today is Day 87 -- but that's counting the two unexpected PD days as Days 85-86. Then again, if two days are added to the end of the year in June to make up for these two missed days, then I'll retroactively label this as Day 85.) 8:00  -- First period begins. As expected, today's schedule is just like an all-classes Monday. I don't have a first period -- and luckily, we didn't have a bunch of teachers call in sick. So I don't need to cover any extra classes today. 9:00  -- Second period begins. This is the first of two Ethnostats classes. Recall that earlier, I was considering doing the One Word Challenge that Shelli promotes -- perhaps even on Desmos. But instead of Shelli, I decided to go with Sarah Carter. Each year on the first day after winter break, Carter posts a...

Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Yule Blog Prompt #17: My Goals/One Word Challenge for 2022 3. Cheng's  Art of Logic in an Illogical World , Chapter 14 4. Conclusion Introduction Today is Baptism Sunday on the Christian Calendar. It is defined as the Sunday after Epiphany, and is based on an interpretation of the Bible that Christ was baptized around his 30th birthday. Thus Baptism Sunday is the last holiday of the "Christmas season." Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas two days ago, and their Epiphany (or Theophany), will be twelve days later, on January 19th. This is also their day to celebrate Baptism -- indeed, it's the Baptism, not the Three Kings, that is more significant in Eastern Churches. What are my Hispanic students celebrating today? After doing some research, I did read about how some Spanish-speakers observe Octavitas , an eight-day celebration for Epiphany and Baptism. But this is mainly observed in the Caribbean, not Mexico. Thus, unless I fi...