Quarter 1 and 2: August 2009-December 2009
To start out, I am so excited about how much more confident and successful I feel this year than I did for my first
semester teaching at Rocky last year. The professional and personal relationships that I’ve made here at Fossil have really
kept me going and make me feel like I really can be an awesome math teacher. Scott Wales, Kris Hegdal, Michelle
DiGiovanni, Emily Cooper and I all share an office in the North wing and have supported each other through many things so
far this year. I have been paired up with Martha Cranor as my mentor, which has proved to be a perfect partnership!
Martha and I work very well together and have learned so much from each other even in this short amount of time. I am so
grateful for the interest that Martha has shown in my teaching career. I feel like she really believes in my as a young,
first-year teacher which has been inspiring and very helpful. Martha is an amazing teacher and I respect her opinion and have
taken all of her advice to heart.
Geometry - As a high school student, I went through PSD when the math curriculum was the Integrated Algebra
series. Because of this, I never actually took a high school geometry course when I was in school. I was a little bit nervous
about this because, as much as I love geometry, I wasn’t sure if I had a strong enough background to teach the subject as
confidently as I would have liked. I have found that, although Geometry is a struggle to teach as well as learn, I have really
enjoyed teaching it. Something that I have been extremely happy with in teaching geometry is that the subject lends itself to
more discovery-type learning. It is much easier for me to have the students work on group activities and collaborative learning
so that I don’t fall into lecturing to the students more than I should. One of my biggest challenges in teaching geometry,
however, was (and still is) teaching proofs. The students strongly dislike doing proofs. This type of math is scary to the
students because there is no algorithm or specific steps that they have to follow to get the answer. They need to be able to
look at the information that is given to them and use their mathematical knowledge to analyze the information and
mathematically explain step-by-step why something is true. This was hard for me to teach because I basically have to teach
students how to think mathematically, which they are not used to doing yet. As this point, the students are accustomed to
being told how to do a problem and then given multiple problems to practice over and over. They don’t actually have to reason
though the problem themselves. However, even though it is a challenge to teach, proofs force the students to think and
reason mathematically, which has been great!
Algebra 1 – My algebra classes have been quite a challenge for me this year. However I have found that most of
the Algebra 1 teachers are struggling with the material as much as I am. One of the hardest challenges with these two
classes is the classroom management piece. On a daily basis I feel like I am constantly battling with the students in order to
keep them calm enough to learn the information. Even though my goal is to try and use more collaborative learning in my
classroom, I have struggled with that in my Algebra 1 classroom. When the students are working in groups, most of my time
is spent trying to keep them from veering off track rather than spending my time circulating from group to group to help
them understand the mathematical concepts they should be working on. In addition to struggling with the behavior in these
classrooms, the material is proving to be quite difficult for the students as well; this is consistent across all of the Algebra 1
classes at Fossil. As a math department we are discussing strategies for interventions, and I would love to be one of the
teachers to work with the struggling Algebra students. I, along with two other math teachers, have attended one session of
training for the “Navigator” program (interventions for struggling math students) and have decided that we are going to try
and take all of our Algebra 1 students who fail 1st semester and put them into this remedial math class. It is designed to get
them back on track so that they won’t struggle when they take Algebra 1 for a second time. I have volunteered to teach
this class and I am super excited!! The pedagogy that is used in this program is excellent and my goal will be to eventually
implement strategies that I learn from teaching this remedial class into my other classes as well. Many teachers are warning
me that teaching this class is going to be quite challenging, but I think it’s going to prove as an outstanding Professional
Development opportunity for me as well.
I had a little bit of a scare in one of my Algebra 1 classes first quarter this year!! I had a student who overdosed
on something (I think this is what happened…I never really got any information about it after it happened) between his 1st
period class and when he came to my 3rd period class. At the very beginning of class when everything was just settling down I
noticed that this student was acting very strange. I gave a direction for the students to get into groups to work on an
assignment and I noticed that he wasn’t moving. I was sitting at my desk and he was in the back of the room and I called his
name about 4 or 5 times before he realized that I was talking to him. I asked him if he was feeling okay and he replied “Yes,”
but he still didn’t move from his seat. I started to think that he may be on something and the other students were beginning to
look at him funny so I asked him to come out in the hall to talk to me. I waked to the door and looked back and realized he
still hadn’t moved. I called his name again and he started to get out of his chair and completely fell over! He tried to stand
up again and walk out into the hall where I was waiting for him, but he had to use the wall for support because he could not
walk on his own. At this point I started to get really scared and wasn’t sure what I should do! I knew I had to get him to an
administrator or find someone who could help me, but I wasn’t sure if I should leave the rest of my class alone. I decided that
the rest of the class would be fine for a couple of minutes and I really needed to focus on the safety of the student who was
obviously in some sort of trouble. I practically had to carry him out of the classroom and started walking him towards Brad
Nye’s office praying that he was in there. As I was slowly walking the student down the hall I made contact with Brad
through his window and I probably looked at him with the most panicked look ever! I really wasn’t sure how to tell Brad
what was going out without making any assumptions in front of the student so it took Brad a few minutes to realize that I had
a student who was in some real trouble and that I was in a slight state of panic! Finally he realized what was going on and
took the student into Nick Peterson’s office to figure out what was going on. I later found out that they had to call and
ambulance and take the student to the hospital and I am so glad that I realized what was going on right away. It was one of
those things that made me realize that there are so many things that could happen in a classroom that you may or may not be
prepared for. That situation was definitely an interesting “welcome to teaching” moment for me!
Overall Goals/Successes/Improvements - One of my goals this year was to lecture less and to incorporate more
collaborative learning. Although I feel like I’ve done much, much better with that than I did last year at Rocky, it still is
an area of improvement for me. In geometry it was much easier to incorporate collaborative learning; however I struggled with
it more in my Algebra 1 classes. I think this had a lot to do with the dynamic of the classroom and the type of students that
were in that class together. One of my Algebra classes had a lot of classroom management issues.
Another one of my goals for this year was to have more regular contact with parents. Last year I found myself
letting students slide by without contacting their parents to let them know they were struggling academically or behaviorally
in my class. This semester I feel like I have done a much better job at contacting parents, but there is still room for
improvement! I contacted parents a lot for behavioral issues but my goal for next semester is to have more contact regarding
grades and academic issues. This semester I found that I was so crunched on time that taking the time to call parents and let
them know that their student is struggling was so difficult to do. I would like to find a system that would allow me to contact
multiple parents at one time to let them know that their student has a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ in the class and then request that they
contact me if they have any questions or concerns. This semester I tried to send report cards home to be signed by the
parents and then returned to me; this didn’t work out as well as I would have liked. Only a few students brought the report
cards back signed so I ended up having to call most of the parents anyway to let them know I sent a report card home and
never saw it again. It kind of defeated my purpose . Next semester I am thinking that I will create an email that can be
sent to the parents of any of my ‘D’ and ‘F’ students. My goal is to get these emails out to parents as soon as I have enough
grades in the gradebook to make a difference. I’d like to have these emails out a couple of weeks into quarter 3 (before
parent-teacher conferences).
My biggest goal for this school year was to never take work home. I have been doing great meeting this goal! 
Last year I took work home every night and it completely burnt me out. I felt like I was working all day and then going home
and working all night. Even if I have to stay late a few nights, it has been amazing to be able to keep work at work. This
separates my home life from my work life, giving me the feeling that I have time to relax after school before getting up
early to start work again! This gives me more of a separation between days which has kept my stress level more balanced
than it was last year.
Quick Review of my Goals for Next Semester:
 More collaborative learning in the classroom (keeping students accountable for their learning)
 Continue not taking work home!
 Early contact with parents if the students have a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ in my class
 Stay healthy: eat healthy home-cooked food and find time to go to the gym after work 
Quarter 3 and 4: January 2010-May 2010
At the start of this quarter, I was no longer teaching any Algebra 1 classes. Instead I taught two of our four
sections of “Ramp-Up to Algebra” for all of the Algebra 1 students who failed in the first semester. No other high school in
Fort Collins teaches it and this is the first year that FRHS is using it as a part of their curriculum. Teaching this new
class had me facing many challenges like motivation and participation, just to name a couple. However, I learned so much by
teaching this course! Last semester when Michelle and I went to the Navigator/Ramp-Up district training we learned about
teaching strategies that would be beneficial in any mathematics course, not just for the lower-level learners. For example,
the Ramp-Up course specializes in student-lead instruction where the students will collaborate about a certain set of problems
and then “teach” the class what they discovered about the mathematics by writing out how they worked on the problem on a
transparency and then presenting it to the class. (I laugh because I feel like using overhead projectors is so ancient compared
to all of the technology that we have available to us now, like SmartBoards. ) My favorite part about how the lessons
are structured is that there is only 10 minutes of “lecture” time in order to introduce the students to the topics that we will
be covering that day and then the rest of it is student-based learning.
However, I really struggled with implementing this with these particular students because the motivation piece was
definitely not there. I had many kids who felt like they were “too good” and too smart to be in this class for “dumb kids” so
they would refuse to work on the assigned problems because they were “too easy”. They treated the other students in the
class like they were better than them which caused an uncomfortable rift in my class. Classroom management is definitely my
biggest struggle as a new teacher so working with this type of student group has been tough. What I struggle with the most
is what to do with the individual students who refuse to work and to listen to me when I ask them to do something. Many other
teachers that I have sought advice from have told me that I need to get them out of my class. Either give them a formal
write-up with the deans or tell them to leave class in the moment when they are being defiant. I’m hesitant about this, and I’m
not really sure why. Maybe I feel like if I try to get the formally removed from my class then I’m giving up on them…?
Maybe this is my new-teacher idealistic mind-set that is talking, but I feel like I want to try all other options before I just
kick him out of class. I tried working with his counselor, Nick Peterson, a lot which was pretty helpful. Throughout the
semester I definitely made progress and gained the respect of many students in the Ramp-Up classes but there are many
things that I know I would do differently next year if I was ever in this situation again.
As for the success of Ramp-Up as a class, I think that I’d have to teach it for more than a semester to really get
a good idea on whether or not the Ramp-Up course would be a successful intervention. It’s a shame that we don’t really have
the money to implement Ramp-Up again because I feel like Michelle and I have made a lot of progress with it and would
probably be more successful if we had an entire year to teach it the way it was meant to be taught. It is a really good
program and could really benefit our students if it was implemented the correct way. If anything, I hope to take some of the
teaching strategies with me next year to use in my Geometry and Algebra 1 classes.
This year Michelle, Scott, and I offered to teach a new type of intervention course for next year where we are
going to target 60 of our lowest level Algebra 1 students coming in from the Middle Schools in the same class to try and
implement tired instruction within the course. The idea is that we will start out in the Roundhouse will all 60 students and
eventually split them into groups based on their ability level. We’d like to see them everyday (do a double-block type
course) but I don’t think that we’re going to have the resources to do that. Ideally we’d like to teach the section together
with all 60 students, quiz them, and then split them up based on how they understood/mastered the lesson. We’d split them
into low, medium, and high groups for intervention and extension work. I’m really excited about this class but really nervous
too. I think Michelle, Scott, and I work extremely well together so we could be very successful as a team, but having 60
low-level Algebra 1 students all in the same room could be potentially hard to manage 
At the end of the year we found out that Rob Bates is no longer going to be our department head; next year it’s
going to be Andrew Wind. I’m a little bit sad about this because Rob and I have developed such a good relationship this year!
Rob has been so helpful and supportive of me as a new teacher and he is a big reason why I have felt so comfortable at
Fossil. Andrew and I have never spoken a word to each other this year and usually at the department meetings he keeps to
himself and spends the entire time grading papers (which is why I was actually really surprised that he applied for the
position). Hopefully Andrew and I will get along just as well as Rob and I do, and I’m excited to actually get to know him a
little bit better next year. I can tell that he has some ideas for changes he’d like to see happen within the math department
next year so hopefully they’ll be good changes!!
In closing I just have to say how grateful I continue to be for the relationships I’ve developed at Fossil. I feel like
the teachers that I share an office with upstairs all take care of each other and the other math teachers and I collaborate
so well together. Even the smallest things like making copies for each other without asking and checking each other boxes
when we’re downstairs don’t go unappreciated. I probably would not have made it through this year without their support 
Quick Review of my Goals for Next Semester:
 Make binders of all of my lessons for Algebra 1 and Geometry so they are easily accessible and in the correct
order
 Continue not taking work home!
 Finish my induction binder by the end of next year
 Get double blocked Algebra 1 classes implemented for the following year (RtI)
 Re-apply for UNC Math TLC masters program starting summer 2011
 Stay healthy: go to the gym more often!
Quarter 5 and 6: August 2010-December 2010
This year I finally feel like I really belong as part of the staff of FRHS. At Rocky I never really felt like I
was really a part of the staff for many reasons and my first year at Fossil was just spent getting to know people and
figuring out all of the norms in the school. Being a returning teacher (no longer a newbie) I really feel like I belong here.
It’s a really nice feeling. I feel like this semester I’ve felt more comfortable speaking up and volunteering for things now
that I am a little bit more comfortable in my own skin.
Teaching Geometry for the second time has been so much fun.