POWERpoint.

After completing UCI's credential program, I was eager to land my dream teaching position at Los Alamitos high school and incorporate the skills and tools I learned throughout the year in my own classroom.  My schedule consisted of 3 periods of Algebra AB, which is the first semester of Algebra 1 over a year time span.  I quickly realized that my focus for the year would be classroom management.  The students were talkative, distracting, and many of them demonstrated oppositional behaviors.  Not only were the students acting in ways that were inappropriate for the classroom, we were not maximizing instructional learning time, and formative and summative assessments demonstrated their lack of mathematical understanding.  So what was I to do with these classes that were loud, off-task, and didn't understand algebra?

My answer was PowerPoint.  I began making PowerPoint lessons daily to provide structure and routine to the class.  My hope was that by using this technology, the students would become more engaged, on-task, and gain a better understanding of the algebra concepts.  I used a projector and smart slate to control the PowerPoint lessons and they actually turned out to be a huge success.  Transition time between tasks was significantly decreased because I was able to switch the slides much quicker than my use of the overhead projector in the past.  I was also able to spice up the lessons with color, images, sounds, and animation, which also helped to engage the students.  Furthermore, since I was able to control the lesson with a smart slate, I was not trapped at the front of the room.  Rather, I was able to walk freely around the room to monitor the students' note taking and behavior.  I was able to strategically place myself by certain students who had a more difficult time focusing on the lesson.  The routine of the PowerPoints also enabled the students to make predictions of what the schedule would be and be more prepared for class.  They could anticipate the warmups, notetaking, "try on your own problems" and homework time.

PowerPoints certainly allowed me to gain more power and control over my class.  I soon found that the students would much rather engage in a PowerPoint lesson when compared to watching me drag on with the overhead projector.  I hope to get a document camera this upcomming year also because I think it would really help these students follow along as I give directions.  Most of my students are visual learners, and most (if not all) of them prefer to use technology when possible, so any way I can incorporate these two learning styles in the classroom would benefit my students learning.

I would certainly recommend using technology as much as possible in the classroom to enhance student engagement and learning!  Also, it turned out to be an amazing classroom management for my Algebra AB classes.  Thank you POWERpoint.