Thorstenson

=My Thoughts=

Introduction
== Name: Denise Thorstenson School: A. C. New Middle School http://www.mesquiteisd.org/new/

What I love most about my job: I enjoy working with students and helping them to understand math. I had a difficult time with math when i was younger and I can honestly say I know what it is like to struggle in this area. I feel a need to work with the lower performing students because they have the most potential for growth. My students are very important to me and I spend a lot of time building relationships with these students and serving as a mentor for them. I feel very fortunate that I am able to make such a positive difference in the lives of children.

Favorite Things

 * being a wife and mother
 * gardening
 * reading
 * writing curriculum
 * cooking
 * researching and analyzing data
 * politics
 * sewing

Burning Question
//Why does everything that tastes good have to be so bad for you? (i.e. movie theater popcorn)//

Web 2.0 Stuff
The follow link is to a video that I made to teach fractions to my 6th grade math class. The video is one of the firsts that were made and I was using new software so there are some kinks to work out. The students watched this video at home and followed along with their notes. The next day in class we were able to get right to work. The students gave us some good feedback and we are excited to work on flipping our classroom next year. I am working with another teacher in this course, Ms.Marsh. I will be the inclusion teacher and she will be the general ed. teacher in the class. We are going to be working over the summer to put together the first two six weeks of lessons with videos! We are very excited about the upcoming year! http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=265411&title=Dividing_Fractions

We are also going to have a Moodle (I think) and use it to embed the links and have the students blog their summary to their notes. We have spent a lot of time researching how to make this happen and what platforms to use. I am also going to do the same thing with my 8th grade classes. I currently teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math in an inclusion setting.