Golden Apple 2000; 5 Patricia. Lemons

Okay, the first thing I'd like you to do is state your name and spell it for us please make sure we get it right and however you would like to be titled teacher, instructor, whatever information you want me to give you my official name or whatever you want to see on the screen however you want to appear on the screen because this is what we're going to put lower third under you when you know we show you okay you ready rolling right go ahead just go ahead give us your name if you want it to appear okay my name is Trisha Lemons and it's T-R-I-S-H-A-L-E-M-O-N-S Okay and any title teacher? Teacher. Teacher Mountain View Middle School. Okay, great. I have lots of titles. Well the one you want to appear for this one I mean that I guess it's the

one that's most germane to you know why we're winning the Golden Apple World really because that's what we're really doing this is this is going to be a three-minute segment that basically appears before you know your award is given to you to introduce everybody to you and give a brief idea why you won the award so let me ask you that first why do you think you want the award says I think I won the award because or I won the award because I think I won the award because I really care about students I care about their feelings when they come into my classroom I care about whether they're learning anything or not in general I care about them as a whole person and I think that comes across to the students how did you get into teaching I got into teaching I got into teaching because at first I want to be a missionary and I went to my pastor and I talked to him and his suggestion to me was that I go to college for a while maybe get my degree

and then come back and talk to him about being a missionary and when I got through with college I decided that my mission field was in the classroom and that that's where I really needed to be was here in the States working about something I deeply cared about okay finish the sentence for me my favorite technique for getting kids interested in math is state that I think I think my favorite technique for getting kids interested in math is to get them involved hands on and for them to see some meaning behind what they're doing in other words they need to know that this mathematics has an application in their life can you give me an example something maybe you did today well we've been working in one of my algebra classes on exponential functions well normally somebody would say exponential functions and kids would go what does that have to do with me but in the class for instance we've talked about population Rio Rancho is it growing exponentially is it declining

exponentially how is it changing and how is that affecting your life and is that important and so that's one application of it we also had another application about studying for a test for instance if you had studied for a test and you knew all this material on one day if you didn't ever study it again for three months how much of it would be retained by you if you lost say 10 percent of it every day and so by the end of 90 days you haven't retained anything and that's meaningful to them I'm already feeling very inadequate in math this is starting to scare me remember a lot of this from middle school and I was pretty good in math too that's kind of scary what do you think is the most the single most important thing that a student will take from your class what do you hope that a student will take out of your class if you pick one thing if I could pick one thing that I helped a student would take from that class it would be the fact that you have to learn from your failures when you make mistakes it doesn't make you a bad math student it just doesn't you can learn from that mistake and then you can see ah I understand now from the past most

students come in and they their first paper they make a 60 on it and they automatically think they're a horrible student and that can be anything further from the truth how does a Mountain View Middle School play into your success well Mountain View Middle School has been so supportive and not only Mountain View Middle School but my district Rio Rancho they have supported me and everything I've done they have given me opportunities to excel to get more education to use a unique and innovative ways of teaching in my classroom without question and that's given me the opportunity to to experiment some things work some things don't but if you never have the opportunity with the backing of your principal and the people around you then you you don't ever know what works can you think of any particular students not necessarily by name but something about a student that that that really showed or made you feel success any instances in your teaching career that just really shine for you at the moment when you really felt ah this is why I'm teaching

well it happens periodically all the time that students all the sudden they'll have that aha and they will understand how it fits together and that this is important and it's meaningful because I try so hard to make sure that they understand that this isn't really important in their life I've had students come in and say you are feeding us a bunch of bull making us think we need to know this math and they've actually said that and if by the end of the year I've had them saying this is important I see now miss them it's why we need to learn this that to me is that's one of the reasons why I teach I'm hoping that they will understand it is meaningful and it's very important how did you choose math well I think when I was in high school I chose math because I was good at it I'm fairly good at it and I had an algebra teacher who thought I could do it he was very very important in my deciding to become a teacher because he just kept telling me

Trisha you can do it you can do it and I believed him which is what I'm hoping that I can do for other students is that I can instill that belief in themselves we're an accomplished public speaker this is going to be one of the easiest segments to cut together I think it will work done very nice you know I hate to make it sound like you're just a sound bite perfect sound but they are I mean your thoughts are very encouraging you're very organized and in your approach I think the public shows in your teaching too well I'm very passionate about what I do and I really do care like I said I do care about these kids even the little smart Alex that come through they I my goal is to get them on my side to get them to see what what this is all about and that that they can do it usually they cover up they cover up their inadequacies by acting out do you find that I have you taught any other h groups besides middle school as well Ashley I've taught as low as the sixth grade and I've taught

all the way up to college I've taught college algebra and trigonometry and you find this particular age group more of a challenge less of a challenge the most definitely more of a challenge but I think that the people that teach middle school have to be called just like I was almost called to be a missionary I mean that from the bottom of my heart the people that teach middle school need to love these students and they have to put up with all their growing up and all their hormones and everything that makes them middle school students you know you just you can see by walking through the halls and seeing the kids that the age spread physically and emotionally is this the whole spectrum from you know childhood to adult it's amazing yeah the middle school still scared me I mean I remember it very well I have only the highest respect for my middle school teachers well I have a lot of people when they find out that's what I do they they say I'm sorry I feel sorry for you and I say no that's okay I'm just at our late diplomas

the broader question and do you have if you do a philosophy of teaching a philosophy of life that fits into it and how would you best express that well I believe my philosophy of teaching or life as it relates to these students is I want them to become lifelong learners I want them to realize that learning is fun and that they can the more they learn the better that they can succeed in life and I want that I want to teach them the joy of learning and I don't know if I always do that but I try to do that I also want to teach them that again they cannot judge themselves if they fail one time they have to say okay I'll just try do it find out what I did wrong make it right and then I can go from there but I always want the kids to know that they're learning something I continually ask them what have you learned what do you need to learn are you ready to go to the next class do you know what to do do you have the skills you need and if you don't what are you

going to do about it and I'm there to help them finish that up and get what they need a lot of teachers have a model of themselves after you know a teacher that they remember from their past to anything like that come to mind any teachers that you felt really made the difference for you and that you model yourself after no I don't have a teacher that I model myself after I have probably a conglomeration of teachers because teaching has changed since I was in school when I was in school it was a traditional front of the room out of the book teaching and that's no longer the case and I couldn't follow that model because that wouldn't work today we found that there's so many other ways that you can teach a child and teach them well so I try to use what I've learned from other teachers and I've learned from a lot of really really fine teachers how you can implement brain-based learning how you can care about their emotions and because eighth grade the emotions are important you need to take that when you teach you need to be aware of that I'm

also interested in getting them to learn the most that they can in the shortest amount of time so I use a variety of tools and I use computers I use wrapping calculators I use hands-on we have algebra blocks that we use sometimes so it's not just one thing that I use it's just everything that I think will help them become a better master why do you think teaching has changed so much from what you grew up with but I probably grew up with well I think we've learned over a period of time that students learn differently and I know from my own experience as I was going through high school college even I have a master's degree in mathematics but I promise you when I graduated from college I'm not sure I knew how that math applied I had good teachers I made good grades I did what I was supposed to do but I don't think that they taught me the application of mathematics the way that they should have so what we need to do now is to make sure that

every student knows that this is important and how it can be applied we've taken things in algebra and we've taken a linear function and we've applied it to what it's going to take to get your lawnmoyed business set up for the summer how much you have to invest how much you have to make each time to break even and where that what that looks like on a graph and how come that's important to you can you think of anything I've missed anything you want to say well there is one thing that I'd like to say you know I feel very humbled by having this award but there are so many good teachers I I almost feel bad because there are so many deserving teachers out there I work with many of them on my team and in eighth grade they work so hard and they care deeply about their students and I just want I want the whole world to know that that we do care and that we spend a lot of time working toward helping the students become better learners one one question and you can still look at him when you're at the beginning of your class you pass the brain tell me how

important that is and what's that about okay when I start my classes I usually pass a coach or some soft toy I have a heart and I have a brain that I pass around and I I throw it around and I ask them do you have any good and new anything good and new that you'd like to share with the class today and the reason that I do that is many fold one of them is to to get it off the chest when they come into classroom they have a lot they want to say so I give them an opportunity to say it to everyone at the same time also mathematics is traditionally had a bad rap and the kids come into my classroom say 70% on coming there with with a negative attitude toward math so I want to give them an opportunity to make it a positive experience right away and so we take maybe five minutes at the beginning of the period and everyone shares something and they don't have to though but they're welcome to share something good and new and they let me know if I forget because it's very important to them that's great I thought that was neat when you're really okay can you explain

the brain based learning okay brain based learning is teaching so that the in a way that the brain learns best and there's been a lot of research done in the past few years which has dramatically changed the way that we teach in the classroom and so what I've done is I'm trying to get certified in that area so that I can teach other people how to do that too but it's changed my classrooms tremendously because I bring in a lot of things such as music and use music in transition every time the kids come into my classroom just music playing when they leave their music playing and when they have tests sometimes there's music playing that's one technique that allows the learner I think it's another technique that helps them to be more positive and be excited when they come in the classroom because I play all kinds of music I don't just play one kind I mean I'll play Tom Jones or I'll play classical or I and believe it or not these kids know this music from way back in the 60s and the 50s Elvis I'll play Elvis and so they get kind of happy when they come into the classroom

another thing that I do with this brain based would be the flowers that I bring to the classroom they bring a sense of with it they smell well smell good and they're they're delightful to have in the classroom kids seem to like to have that kind of thing in the classroom I use bright colors in the classroom we use a variety of methods of teaching brain based says that not all students are in the same so some things we get up and we move around for for those kinesthetic learners sometimes we we do some regular kind of linguistic stuff we write and we work math problems the way that you used to work math problems and then sometimes we do investigative math which believe it or not the students find very difficult because it makes them think and they don't like to think all the time it's painful if it's not something they're used to so what what we call it is stretching the rubber band we also do dancing line dancing on our breaks and the reason

we do is it's number one it again it associates fun with algebra or math it does cross lateral movement if you've done any study at all about the cross movement across the midline it it helps both sides of the brain engage in more meaningful learning and it also oxygenates their brain so that they have a lot more oxygen to think with because the brain uses most of that and thank you this is particularly controversial and there's something we've really liked to do I would say that it's becoming more accepted I would say also if it works use it it doesn't always have to be based on somebody's research but if it works use it and then after a while you find out if it doesn't work and then you won't use it anywhere but a lot of my colleagues are beginning to believe in it and they use parts of it themselves and they're plus when do we how do we set up for the kids what are they going to do?

well they should be let's see they're just not through a flinch so all I would have to do is call down and have them get them stop there yeah You