Ms. Hing Cao

Quizstar – Not Your Ordinary Assessment Tool

hingcao — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:40:01 +0000

QuizStar
(Middle School Mathematics)

Parents, Teachers: Have you ever compulsively checked your class grade on Norse Express after the last day of Finals week to see how you did in a course? Did the professor seem to always take his/her sweet time posting your grade while all your peers insensitively complained that they got Bs, when you had an anxiety attack that maybe, just maybe, you were given a C? Do you remember leaving class remembering nothing about the new material the teacher was introducing in class because she promised she would return yesterday’s test at the end of the period – and the end of the period not coming soon enough was all you could think about? Have you ever arrived late to class only to find out that a quiz was conducted, and you are penalized for your tardiness? What about forgetting or misplacing a quiz sheet?

“QuizStar makes it easy for instructors to create quizzes online, administer quizzes and organize results.” Teachers (click on Instructors Site arrow), when it comes to grading, you can rather effortlessly give feedback the same day as the answers are assessed immediately after students take the test online. When it comes to civics and honesty in test taking, a satisfied teacher, Theresa Soloman says, “I think QuizStar works because each student gets different questions. They could be sitting next to each other and not have the same exam.” Quizzes can be designed to include many question and answer formats: true/false, multiple choice, maybe even asking students to show proofs. You can control which students have access to which quizzes you developed, and students will begin to be expected to be responsible for deadlines, as you already are being flexible by letting them work on their own schedule. Grading of quizzes occurs automatically, and you can generate reports on class standings, individual standings, and get general snapshots and statistics of feedback on your teaching effectiveness.

Students (click on Student Site arrow), you “can continue to work on either untaken or started quizzes.” Just be cognizant that the teacher can set time limits on a quiz. It is possible to see your results and scores, to take and review your quizzes. Similar to something you will be doing later on in life – paying credit card bills, or ordering things online – you are offered a summary of how you answered, what you left blank, or what you told yourself to look at again, prior to submitting your quiz. There is still time to change your answers! Another good thing about this website is that you (the student) are not left alone in the cold to just jump into a quiz. If you need any help navigating the website, there is a help button at the top of the page.

It’s reassuring to teachers, students and parents alike in that the website does not give user information out to anybody. Although, users are told in tutorials to always practice caution: remember to log out when you are done, and especially remember to read the teacher’s instructions on the quiz. Quizstar is a good time saver, eliminates the need for paper, and a very accurate black-and-white assessment of how one is doing – whether as a teacher or a student.

Prolonged use just might begin a beautiful friendship with technology.

Exploration and Reinforcement

hingcao — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:29:27 +0000

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
(Middle School Mathematics)

People – at all different stages of life – learn according to their individual learning styles. Although the concept of learning styles applies to everyone, I will focus especially on students in our Math classrooms. Some students learn best with direct instruction and a low student to teacher ratio to facilitate plenty of one-on-one attention. Other students learn best when left to their own devices and understanding of the concept, but still need to be checked up on quite frequently. One final type of student (in this, my scenario) prefers being left alone once instruction is over to just work on guided practice on their own – with minimal supervision. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives caters to all these different sorts of students in our classrooms, while offering teachers a great on-going assessment tool – technology. Teachers can assess to what level (novice, apprentice, expert, I-understand-this-concept-I-am-so-devastatingly-bored,-Teacher!!) their students are getting concepts.

While it might seem that this website is purely for the reinforcement and additional practice and training of materials, I am fond of the idea that it affords the extra opportunity to students who may want to extend their understanding of current topics or explore related topics that are built upon the basics already introduced in class. But again, it is sensitive in that it just might discreetly allow a student who finds himself (or herself) struggling in a certain area to click around and do some practice problems, without requiring too much classroom time drilling all levels of the classroom on the concept.The Virtual Library link leads you to a page that is laid out in a matrix or chart, and is an excellent resource for ideas on how to slide the scale up and down to the difficulty levels of the Math concepts of Number & Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, Data Analysis & Probability. It can be considered that the levels of understanding are: “Beginner” (Grades Pre-K to 2); “Intermediate” (Grades 3 to 5); “Advanced” (Grades 6 to 8); “Expert” (Grades 9-12). I completely enjoy the interactive nature of the different activities, and the way concepts are conveyed makes me think someone seriously considered the Myers Briggs, personality and IQ tests, and that people learn differently, but almost all love games.

Focusing on Grades 6-8, the site touches on number theory in Algebra, prime numbers in Number & Operations, the Pythagorean Theorem in Geometry, spatial relationships in Measurements & Manipulatives, and summarizing data in Data Analysis & Probability. Not a stranger to Yahoo! Games during my lunch hour at work, I am living proof that teachers can also have fun – playing the Tangram games in 6-8 Measurements – I mean, testing it out for any age-inappropriate quirks. The support team of the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives definitely understands that people learn differently, and knows that people can rarely pass up interactive tools. Teachers, let’s keep our Java applet updates, well, up to date! Download your Free Trial Desktop Version now!

I like to think that, along with a well-trained teacher, the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, helps students satisfy the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 6^th categories of the National Education Technology Standards for Students (NETS):

2. Social, ethical and human issues: Students develop positive attitudes toward technology uses that support lifelong learning, collaboration, personal pursuits, and productivity.

3. Technology productivity tools: Students use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity.

6. Technology problem-solving and decision-making tools: Students employ technology in the development of strategies for solving problems in the real world.

I also think NETS Performance Indicators for Technology Literate Students is met by this website.

NETS Indicator #4: Use content specific tools, software, and simulation (e.g., environmental probes, graphing calculators, exploratory environments, Web tools) to support learning and research.

Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox

hingcao — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:42:48 +0000

Boys and girls, I just realized something!

I created this website, managed it, chose the presentation and options . . . in Mozilla Firefox. Now that I am looking at http://hingcao.wordpress.com … in Internet Explorer, the template is the same, but the widgets look different. Major differences I see are that I.E. has set up by blogroll to feel like an unordered list (even though I know there is alphabetical order, I am surprised at the layout differences. Maybe I will have to play with the CSS. I know, this is not quite math or teacher related, but I just wanted to say that there is a difference in the look depending on your browser.

Try it! (Did that all just sound way too dorky?”)

Math shortcuts

hingcao — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:13:10 +0000

Please view my videos at the bottom right of the screen. I discovered an interesting way to help kids remember their 9′s multiplication table (it only goes up to 9 X 10, though.) There are many more videos on math by this YouTube poster, but I found this one to be a different way to teach the lesson. Enjoy!

Hello, everybody!

hingcao — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:59:55 +0000

Welcome to Hing Cao’s blog and website!

Hi, there! My name is Hing Cao and I am a preservice teacher enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Northern Kentucky University. I am determined to gain some experience teaching Mathematics to the junior high crowd, and am not ruling out supplementary schooling to further my certification area to the high school Math junkies crowd. Students in my classroom are expected to be promoted to the next grade cherishing something about math – I deliver no less than positive trauma. Facetiously, my goal in life is to have impacted the learning of at least one student who will ultimately end up in rocket surgery. Seriously, though? There have been enough signs in my life pointing to teaching math as my calling. Nothing else quite suits me. This wordpress.com blog was initially developed as an assignment for my EDMT 641 course, but is intended to eventually evolve into a repository of mathematical subject appropriate resources: links, images, pictures and sound bites, videos, and other media types – for middle school teachers, students, and parents.

Feel free to click around and add comments! Some pretty neat content is going to be posted on these pages, so please feel encouraged to add me to your RSS, or check back often!