Mrs. Evans Blog

I've seen that in the business world you have more freedom to create and give input on projects. In high school math classrooms it seems like so often we tell the kids exactly what to do. We give them specific examples, tell them to read specific pages, make them do specific problems to show us that they understand specific content, and we even ask for them to show us specific methods sometimes. At Hy-Vee, we have had some specific projects to work on, but we have been able to organize and decide how we wanted to execute those projects. We were asked to update manuals for the new software Hy-Vee will be rolling out. We were able to decide what each of us wanted to do to accomplish that task by using our strengths. I wasn't as good at organizing what we had done and what we still had left to do, but I feel like I excelled at going through the wording and adding emphasis to certain things. By using our strengths and splitting up the task and executing it how we wanted to, we were...

In the last week we have been focusing quite a bit on training for stores in the Des Moines area. We got to do some one-on-one training face-to-face which was really nice. They could ask us any questions right away and have direct communication with a person. Unfornately, this probably isn't practical for training stores outside of the centra Iowa radius. We have been considering ways to train stores that are a considerable distance away by using different technology tools available to us. I enjoy using Power Point, so yesterday I created a power point that we might be able to turn into a short video to use to train hundreds of stores in the next few months. While I was making the power point, I was just "doing my thing," but as I started to process it on my drive home I realized that, with each slide I had to consider what I wanted to emphasize, how much information was enough and how much would be too much on one slide, what information would benefit from visuals, wha...

Today I've really gotten to harnass my inner English teacher! We've been updating training manuals for the newest version of Hy-Vee's software. We found a very quick and easy way to include Tables of Contents and hyperlinks so that the manuals are more user friendly and easier to navigate online. I've gone back and forth in previous instances about the role of writing in the math classroom. There's no doubt in my mind that writing about math is an extremely valuable tool, and I absolutely want my kids to be used to writing their thinking and putting explanations down on paper from the very beginning of the school year. I wonder how much emphasis I should put on using proper sentences and correct grammar. If I am only thinking about their understanding of math, then perhaps their grammar and punctuation are not very important; however, if I consider their other classes, the college requirements they will face, and the skills they will need for almost any job, I sho...

I want to reflect on the math I've seen used so far. - When counting items, the software keeps a running total. This actually takes some of the math out of the job so employees don't have to add items missed the first time manually. - The software allows you to see how many of a particular item sold during different ads. This number isn't very useful, however, if you had one ad that lasted for a month and one ad that lasted for two days. Maybe peanut butter was on sale for $1.00 for two days in February and during those two days at a particular store, 66 jars of peanut butter were sold. Maybe there was also a month long ad in March and peanut butter was on sale for $1.50. If 674 jars of peanut butter were sold during that month, you can't compare the 674 to the 66 because they were in different lengths of time. It might be more useful to keep track of how much of an item was sold per day during different ads. Then you could get a much better idea of how many you mig...

This week has been busy and changing constantly. I have spent three days this week working in Hy-Vee stores and gas stations to learn how they currently use their software for things like ordering products, handling inventory, hanging signs and tags, and changing prices. There was a big difference between the different locations that the three of us went to, and big differences between the main stores and gas stations. We've also visited a Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits to observe how they do things. I really think the project we're working on right now will be very beneficial for all Hy-Vee employees regardless of which location they currently work at. One thing we'll be working on for the next week or two is updating manuals to match the software updates that will be coming out. This involves mainly layout, grammar, and bolding things to make it easier to read, as well as making sure any instructions or pictures are changed to fit the new software. We're also trying the ad...

Today we continued training with Hy-Vee's software. We spent quite a bit of time learning about how the software handles situations where an item is in multiple ads for different prices. It took hearing it a few different times, looking at a power point, and considering different scenarios before we finally understood how the software worked. It was a great example of how many of our students might not understand something the first time. We need to show them multiple examples of different scenarios and use different teaching methods to help them understand. I know most of my students aren't going to be teachers, but even in the business world, they need to learn to communicate and share important information with other employees. I think I can really help prepare my students by asking them constantly to share their thinking and discuss problems with their neighbors. This is something I do already, but I can be even more intentional about it after my experience this summer. I c...

Hi Readers, I thought it would be a nice start to my blog to share my experience over the first two days of meeting with the people at Hy-Vee, and share my ideas and expectations as I go into this externship. The people at Hy-Vee have been great so far! I went into this kind of clueless about the specifics, and even though I know we have a lot to learn before we can get into projects of our own, I have already learned a lot of interesting things about Hy-Vee that make me excited to learn more and help with whatever I can. I've seen math used in various places and in ways that I had never thought about before, and I've only been through two days of training so I can only imagine how much more math I'm going to experience over the course of the summer. It is true that most employees don't sit down at their desks, pull out a parabola, and start finding zeroes, but I can see that just having good number sense is invaluable for so many different positions in the company, a...

Today we had a meeting with the people from IMSEP. It was cool to meet so many other teachers from around Iowa.