While going throughout my life, the same question happens to pop up every single year “What is the point of school”. I myself have asked this question of what the point of school was. In my earlier years I’ve probably been asking the question to be stubborn towards the teacher, but as I got older I’ve wanted to know the answer. I went about discovering the answer most people avoid by asking teachers and my parents. But the one person who I really needed to ask was myself. 

Throughout the semester my classmates and I have been reading about educators and their perspective on “What is the point of school is” or “What the point of school should be”.  By reading the different types of perspectives varying from Deborah Meier’s vision of democratic education to President Obama’s speech on the first day of school, I’ve formulated my own vision of school. The purpose of my school would have a focus on the arts and the normal math, reading, and science following after it. In an agreement with Ken Robinson, I believe the arts would help students discover what they truly love and inspire to be when they get older. The arts include of drama, art (such as painting and drawling), and music. Not only will they help guide students in choosing their career choice, but also give them a little down time from the standard subjects. There would be a total of 6-8 classes total depending on how many classes the student wants to take 6 being the minimum and 8 being the highest. I am also a where that all students may not have an interest in the arts, which is why the standard teachings will be taught.

Students would have the option in choosing the classes that most interest them. The students will also have up to the first two weeks of school to change the art class they're in if they don't find interest in them. But the standard subjects would be taught the normal way depending on the grade the student's in.  

El blog de Brooke Thompson sobre la escuela

 In algebra 1 missThompson assigned the class to a mini project, she split the class into groups and then assigned them to a different subject. I worked with Lamaya Mapp, JosephParisi, William Marsh and Maxine Hayman. We were assigned power sequences.A power sequence is a pattern or sequence of numbers that follows anexponential rule. There are actually two ways of saying something is a powersequence. There are many different kind of sequences but tecnicly they are tomajor ones the first is of course a power sequence however the second would beknown as an exponential sequence; or a sequence that uses exponents.

In this post to drupal I will be explaining what me and my fellow classmates had to do for Mr. Thompsons Math class.

Everyone in our math class was broken up into groups of 4 or 5 students. All of groups got different assignments such as The Fibonacci Pattern, Sierpinski Triangle, Binary sequence, Triangular and Rectangular Sequences, and Power sequences.

The group I was in was power sequences and with power sequences there are many types of power sequences. What we had to do was study our sequence and find out what it was, what was it used for, interesting information and who uses it and why.

For our Algebra Q1 Benchmark we were split into groups and then we had to make a blueprint of our "Dream House." We had to exhibit our skills in scaling down measurements and collaboration with our team to put together a full blueprint. We were all divided into groups of 4 and had to design 4 rooms ourselves. The rooms were scaled down from centimeters to even smaller centimeters. The scale was 1 cm= 20 cm in real life. Our blueprints had to be 60 by 50 cm. 

This year, I am in Ms. Thompson's Algebra One class. For our first quarter benchmark, we were put in groups of three or four. My group included Blase, Tariq, and Dylan. For this benchmark, the goal was to create a blueprint of a room with 5 unique items of our own, which mine was the bedroom. We had to measure the items and scale down to create a blueprint that someone would actually be able to use. It took a few steps to get done the final product and post the information and such on druple.

The first benchmark in Ms. Thompson’s Algebra class challenged us to create the blueprints our “dream house” in groups of four.  How does this relate to mathematics, you might ask?  Well, it’s quite simple- we’re designing the blueprints for it, so we must measure out and scale down the objects we would have in the house.  We each had to have a minimum of five unique objects in our rooms of the house (meaning that there can only be one in that house), coming out to 20 total.  The project was very fun and educational at the same time.

Nia Berry                                                                                                November10, 2008

Orange Stream-Y band

The FibonacciPattern

Our mini project was to research our assigned sequence and teach someone something new. My assigned sequence was Binary sequence and my group members were Marina Stuart, Briana Stroman, and Tariq Smith. Here is more information about Binary sequence.

 Our assignment in algebra 1 was to research a different sequence with a group of three or four people and report to each other on information we get.  I was assigned binary sequences.  I worked with Alaya White, Brianna Stroman, and Tariq Smith.  I have now learned a lot about binary sequences and why they are.

This is how binary sequences can express any number.

(http://math.editme.com/Binary)

Recently, our algebra class was required to research different sequences as part of several "mini-projects."  Students were divided into groups, and each was assigned a different sequence to research, and in the end posting our discoveries on Drupal.  The group I was in was assigned triangular and rectangular sequences.  I was then appointed to the research of triangular sequences, so naturally I specialize in them.

The Fibonacci sequence is an arithmetic sequence. It uses addition to find the next term number. The way a Fibonacci sequence works is that t1 will always be zero and t2 will always be one. It normally looks like: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765 . . .