Professor Burger

I can't believe my student teaching is almost over, my UCI education is almost complete and I am on the verge of becoming a teacher. I feel like this day has taken so long to get to and there have been so many twists and turns that led me here. In honor of this momentous occasion, I have one last blog post in me reflecting on how I have incorporated technology in these last few weeks of teaching. Our district pays for access to the online textbook for all Math 6 and Algebra I students. This allows them to leave their textbook at school and go home to use it online. They can print pages if they need to go somewhere and would prefer not to lug their book with them. There are also interactive math games that help them learn concepts and practice them. They can do additional practice problems and even take the online test for additional practice AND extra credit (something that is hard to come by in this class). My favorite part about this website are the tutorial videos done by none other than Professor Burger. Do you remember him?! I do! I watched him during my Calculus class to get a better grasp on some of the more difficult concepts. Professor Burger has short tutorial videos explaining every section of the textbook so if a student misses a class and does not want to get behind, or just needs to hear the lesson one more time, they have access to this any time! While the school pays for this feature (the online textbook) not many students use this resource to its fullest advantage. During class these past few weeks I have taken it upon myself to show students how to use the website and what a great tool it can be. We played games to help them understand slope and graphing, listened to some Burger and even looked at the practice test for extra help. Students seemed to be interested in this and some even went home to investigate the site a little more. Technology is our friend and I am glad that I was able to show the students this resource and even more glad that they took the time to use it!