JASON ARTHUR

Numeric Literacy Levels 3-6 and Technology

Homeroom: Room 35

Phone: (907) 742-1700

Greetings from King Arthur's Court!

I teach mathematics at Highland Tech, and I am delighted to be here!

My wife and I have lived in Alaska for 1.5 years now, and we love it! We previously lived in Colorado and Utah. We love doing anything in the outdoors, and we are gone nearly every weekend fishing, hunting, camping, backpacking, and the like. I am in my sixth year of teaching (2nd at HTH), and as I grow more experienced, I enjoy it even more. I have found a home at HTH, and hope to be here long term.

I have taught in three other high schools, and experienced and taught in curricula ranging from very traditional to very non traditional (NSF grant program Core Plus), from a hybrid program to project based learning. I bring a background from New Technology High School in Denver, where I developed and published many projects. I am currently working to transition HTH from more of a traditional math delivery system to Project Based Learning. PBL is a program in which the students study their mathematics within real world problems. I give them a big picture task, give them a rubric to follow to complete it, and we work for approximately three weeks on it. I teach them the math along the way and they practice it by working on the project. We also incorporate Accelerated Math, which generates a lot of our practice work and tests. All of this work is correlated to the standards as skills/analytical/contextually based. So far in 2009-2010, we have worked on a Travel Project (L3), Business project (L4), Space project (L5), Satellite project (L6) and a Knik Arm Bridge Project (L5/6) that involved a trip to the KABATA office and presentation from them. I created all of these projects myself, and I hope to create many more of them. My goal this year is to do two projects per semester for each class. My philosophy on mathematics is this: Not everybody is good at math, nor has to be, but everybody can do math if they put effort into it. There is something that everybody struggles with, and if it is math, that is ok, Math is also not just about numbers; mathematics is about teaching people to think! Processes and problem solving are the two single biggest elements of every math class and need to be emphasized and taught.

I also teach a hardware based technology class which is oriented towards building/repairing/refurbishing computers and setting up basic networks.

I am also an advisor to about 20 HTH students. I am King Arthur and they are the Knights of the Round Table! We have a fun time with that, and have many activities planned already this year, including attending a theatre production at UAA, having class T-shirts, doing a service project, and academic coaching. We are a tight knit group that likes to talk to each other and build community.

Please send me an email if you need to contact me because it is the best way to get a hold of me.

Go to our Highland Tech Website for lots more information about our school!

Please go to my blog for more information.