August Graduation is very likely now...

that I've checked the summer schedule for University of Houston, and from what I saw the last two classes that I need are offered in the first of four summer sessions. Now I'll be double checking with the undergraduate advisor that I've been talking to there at UH to make sure that what I'm seeing is correct. But if the classes that I need are correct then I will be able to graduate in August at SFA and be able to start teaching this Fall. So this is very good news to come across. Now one very important step still has to occure before all of this can happen, I still have to get accepted into UH. The item that holding me back on this is apparantly having an official transcript being sent from SFA. The only problem with this, I thought I had already taken care of this, and I'm really surprised to see this holding me back. So I'm going to be checking with SFA about this transcript, and possibly sending another one to UH just in case. I still have a bit more work to do, but the light is really shinning now at the end of the tunnel.

Along with that, I have my next certification exam scheduled here on the 3rd of April. So once I pass this test, all I have to do is graduate to become a fully certified high school math teacher.

Yup, it's unofficial...

that I have passed the TExES 135 Math 8-12 test for secondary certification. Out of 80 scorable questions, I got 67 correct. So that gives me about an 83% score, and I needed an 80% to pass the test. Because I feel like showing off my unofficial scores, here is the break down as to how I did:

I. In the category of Number Concepts, I got 7 out of 11 correct.

II. In Patterns and Algebra, I got 24 out of 27 correct.

III. In Geometry and Measurement, I got 14 out of 15 correct.

IV. In Probablility and Statistics, I got 9 out of 11 correct.

V. In Mathematical Processes and Perspectives, I got 6 out of 8 correct.

VI. In Mathematical Learning, Instruction, and Assessment, I got 7 out of 8 correct.

All in all I thought I did pretty good, and it really helps out on keeping my math skills going while I'm student teaching. By teaching Algebra II and Math Modeling w/ Applications, the teaching aspect has helped refresh my memory on my both my Algebra and Geometry skills. So, basically I'm very grateful for the student teaching helping me out on that. I also have to give some credit to God, because there were some moments were I felt like I was starting to drift of into my own little world, and as soon as I blinked I was refocusing on the problem at hand. To be honest, that was God answering my prayer that I had said at the beginning of the day. So props also go to God on keeping my cool and focus on the test.

What this means now is that I am half way through with my tests for Secondary Certification. All I have left now is the 8-12 PPR exam, which tests my knowledge as to how I would react to dealing with students, parents, and administrators as well other items that would pertain to teaching in general. This is the test that I'm more worried about because it took me about 6 tries to pass the practice test that SFA requires before I can take the real one. This just means I'm going to be practicing and studying a lot more for this test than my math content exam. Now as to when I plan on taking this next test, as of right now I'm not sure. I'm going to be contacting SFA to get the green light to register for the test and then I'll be able to figure out a good time to take the exam. I'm thinking possibly sometime in mid to late April, so that I will have time to prepare myself for the test.

I'm almost done with college, and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel...

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

Wow, what a week. A lot has been going on this week. We have TAKS testing going on, I had my third observation today, and I had made an activity for the Algebra II team on inverse functions.

"The Good"
Never hurts to start with the good, so here we go. To start things off we go to the beginning of the week. For Monday and Tuesday I had made an exploration activity on finding inverse functions and graphing them. I had gotten this idea from being part of a similar activity when I was Lufkin High School. I tried finding the activity and e-mail mailing my former mentor teacher, but no luck. So I then made the activity my what I could recall, and used an activity that is mentioned in the textbook to jump start me as well. After typing it up, I had my mom read it just to make sure the directions make sense. So when the days came to do the activity, all the students were engaged and I really felt like that they were understanding and seeing visually how the inverse funtion works, instead of switching the x and y variables and solve for y. The lesson went well, and got great feedback from the students and my mentor teacher. Then today I had my third observation of four for my student teaching, and my observer (university mentor teacher) said that I was on fire and had control of the class the entire time. Both of my mentor teachers were saying that I've made great improvements since I've started and will make a great teacher. My high school mentor teacher made the comment about how my observer should have been here on Monday and Tuesday to see the Inverse activity. She was saying that she never would have thought of making an activity like it, and will be planning on the activity in the years to come. So with hearing that in front of my observer really made me feel really good and help me felt like I was making a contribution to the Algebra II team as a teacher.

"The Bad"
TAKS testing...enough said. Now my experience wasn't too bad, since I was a hall and restroom monitor. All I had to do was make sure students weren't talking in the hallways as they were going to the restroom, and allow one student at a time into the restroom so that the students wouldn't communicate with each other in the restroom. So the day was very quiet, and it's amazing on how tired one can get from doing nothing.

"The Ugly"
Well, it's sad and dissapointing to hear one's administrators stressing out and yelling at teachers for not having their rooms set up for TAKS. Now at first, you might be thinking that the teacher might deserve it since they haven't done their job. Only problem is that the administrators were coming around to check rooms, yelling at teachers DURING the day, and having the teachers stop their instruction to set up for the TAKS testing. Now, from my understanding the administrators were supposed to come after school so that setting up for TAKS wouldn't interfere with class instruction. Also I know that the state of Texas is very strict on rules and regulations when it comes to testing, but I thought it was kind of silly that we have to set up the rooms with the desks to be 6 rows of 5, and all the desks have to be facing the door. Why facing the door? I'm not sure, maybe studies have been done where students perform better when facing the door. There were a couple other items, but they're not worth complaining about. So as you can see when it comes to TAKS testing things get very hectic, and some people don't handle the situation very well unfortunately.

That's the week for me. I have one more week of teaching, then spring break, and 3 weeks to finish up my student teaching. Now I've applyed to be a substitute teacher, but so far I haven't heard anything further of the situation.