Mr. Porter

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Mr. Porter

Welcome to VMS!  I hope you had a great summer and are excited to be a Kodiak! My name is Zak Porter and I am so excited to be at Victory with you this year.  I will be teaching 6th grade math.  A little bit about me: I grew up in California and moved up to Idaho to go to Boise State.  I studied elementary education and am endorsed in mathematics, meaning I am highly qualified to teach math up to 9th grade.  I love the outdoors, especially when I am backpacking, surfing the river, mountain biking, skateboarding, fishing, and snowboarding.  I also love photography and videography, and actually am a small business owner shooting peoples weddings in the summer.  My wife and I have been married for just over 2 years now and love to travel, hang with our dogs, our church and Young Life community, and our family.   I am so excited to learn more about you and your family as we push through this year together!  

 

 

  • The grading weights for this course is:

    Assesments (tests & quizzes): 90%

    Final Exam: 10%

    Please click here for more information about retakes and late work deadlines. 

     

    This year we will be teaching out of a curriculum called CPM.  Although the content is new and different, I love the idea of teaching from it.  Here are some key focuses that CPM engages students in every lesson.

    Collaborative Learning: Students learn ideas more deeply when they discuss ideas with classmates.

    • Students function effectively within a team environment, value and listen to the ideas of others, and communicate their own ideas.
    • Students engage in productive mathematical discourse, create viable arguments, and critique the reasoning of others.
    • Students read and make sense of problems together, developing procedures for solving the problems.
    • Student thinking and conceptual understandings are openly shared and valued along with correct answers, efficient procedures, and precise mathematical vocabulary.

    Problem-Based Learning: Students gain a better understanding of concepts and have increased retention when they work on contextual problems.

    • Students retain more knowledge when they are taught using problem-based learning.
    • Students investigate and understand math concepts by working through carefully sequenced problems with appropriate teacher support and guidance.
    • Students learn through problem solving by comparing and connecting multiple representations and solution strategies.
    • Students have significantly better retention of mathematics when concepts are grounded in context.
    • Problems engage the mental energies of students and allow them to develop cognitive understanding in a way that is more effective in the long term than simply being told a rule or procedure.

    Mixed, Spaced Practice: Students learn ideas more permanently when they are required to practice skills and apply concepts for months and even years.

    • Students reinforce and expand their understanding of concepts by practicing review problems throughout the year.
    • Students deepen their understanding of concepts, by making new connections while completing an interleaved set of practice problems.
    • Students apply and extend their knowledge more effectively when the engage and re-engage with concepts over time.