Previously Taught

Newcomer Algebra Support

At Century, the Newcomer Academy has been organized to help bring in students who are new to the country. Some of them have their first day of school within a week of being in the country, most of them knowing zero English. Others have been out of school for a few years and finally traveled from as far as El Salvador to come to school here. This course was opened up as an extra section due to other newcomer math courses being at capacity. This course consists of various levels of Math knowledge, where I am here to support everyone. It began with two students and now it has reached sixteen, on average 2.5 students per week. I utilize my Spanish speaking skills to support students, as well as grouping by level so all students can be productive in the allotted time. 

Math 1

For the 2014-2015 school year, I was student teaching in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District at the suburban location of Estancia High School. This school has about 1300 students and 57 teachers. At our school, majority of student population is Hispanic at 72%, then White at 22%, Asian at 3%, Black at 2% and Pacific Islander at 1% of the total student body. Males make up 56% of students and females 44% of the total. Estancia has 78% of students enrolled as minority and we receive Title I funding.

Since a large portion of the students are minority, there are many programs in place to ensure student success. Free after school tutoring or programs, such as Zeros Aren’t Permitted (ZAP) are in place to keep students on the right track. As I began putting more time into the school, I discovered how the school’s goals of their students are both realistic and achievable through the resources provided. Estancia’s mission is to have students “demonstrate high academic achievement and sustain successful post high school pursuits,” whether those be college or other skills necessary for life. This mission is carried out every day and Estancia truly prepares students for life after high school.

From speaking with their parents, I have discovered that about 70% of students have parents at home who do not speak English, which gives me a view into students’ cultural backgrounds. From talking with students and listening to their responses, students have shared that they take care of their siblings or have to go to work multiple days a week, showing me that they have many responsibilities in life other than academics. 

Under the guidance of the Newport-Mesa school district and Common Core trainings, I have taught students through modern methods. In my classroom, students learn with hands-on manipulates, read and write their thoughts (in complete sentences of course!), explore phenomena, reason real-world examples and work collaboratively to enhance their learning.

Being mainly a freshman class with a few sophomores and juniors in the mix, I have a very interesting class dynamic. These students are a very talkative bunch that enjoy socializing, so having a full class with 36 students can be challenging for any teacher, but especially as a new teacher. It has given me great exposure to not only Common Core, but also teaching students who may or may not have any interest at all in Mathematics, but they are required to take the course. Some students come from very different backgrounds and they are a wonderful group of students, they just need firm, but fair discipline in the classroom.

Algebra 2

This is a traditional pathway algebra course. It is designed as a continuation from Algebra 1 to Geometry and finally Algebra 2. Some students take this course as their final year in math, whereas others are preparing themselves for Honors Analysis or Trig/Pre-Calculus in the coming year. I have had a range of ages from freshman to seniors all in the same Algebra 2 class. About 10 percent of students are retaking the course for at least one semester. This class has majority of students learning English, so I ensure that all crucial output is presented orally, displayed on the board and detailed information is printed for the students.

College Algebra

As a new course at Century High School in the 2015-2016 school year, I have had the opportunity to truly cater to my students' needs. With the flexibility of the curriculum map, I am able to expand on their knowledge from Algebra 2, while including life skills that pertain to their current or future endeavors. The audience of this course is for both juniors and seniors. Juniors utilize this as extra preparation for Honors Analysis and the goal for seniors is that they continue practicing their algebra skills for a college placement exam. We do a lot of solidifying of previous skills and extension of students' abilities to be used in their futures.

Trig/Pre-Calculus

In my Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus course, my students are being prepped for not only future Math courses, but also future life endeavors in the real-world. Some are going off to college next year, whereas others will still be in school taking AP Calc. I want all my students to feel prepared for their potential careers and confident in the Mathematics classroom. With my twenty-four students, we keep Math Journals that focus on more than just our procedural knowledge, but we delve deeper into the material and analyze our thinking. They come in handy for studies of phenomena, experiments and reflection of knowledge. Below, you will see sample student work from two exponential experiments that we explored.

Mid-semester, I had student journal conferences with my Trig/Pre-Calculus students to discuss their progress thus far in my class. I want to know how they feel about the first half of the semester and what their goals are for the second half of the semester. The topics of these conferences vary by student. I ask everyone the same couple questions, but the direction of the conversation can be determined by the student. Some want more assistance with homework, others have questions about colleges, a few need help with time management or coming in for office hours once a week. From these conferences, I have discovered that students know they are fully capable of understanding the material, they just need to put in the time. This tells me that my students feel comfortable in their learning environment, they just need a little help! I am incredibly proud of them and their work.

In this lesson, students worked in groups of four and half were given a bowl of M&Ms and the other half piece of construction paper. They were given a set of instructions which leads them to the natural occurrence of an exponential function, one was growth and the other decay. Each group was given a question to analyze about the properties of the situation, then they presented their findings to the class.

Lesson Plans

Sample Student Work