So, obviously, I stopped blogging there for a while. Partly for the usual reason (time), and partly because I felt like I was simply repeating myself, which wasn't helpful to anyone out there or to me (which, selfishly, is the main reason I was writing here).
But several folks in a variety of settings have mentioned lately that they found value in this blog, and I've been feeling the need to think about this more in public again, so I'm going to try to start blogging here again on a semi-regular basis. I don't think it will be on a daily basis (well, each day my class meets, so 4 days a week basis) - my original goal when I started this year, but I'll try to make it fairly regular. And while I suspect I may begin repeating myself again, I'll try to stick with it.
So, if anyone is still out there, stay tuned. Hopefully this post won't be at the top of the page for too long.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Parent/Teacher Conferences
(Cross-posted on The Fischbowl)
At my high school we hold parent/teacher conferences in the fall and spring. In the fall it's two consecutive nights from 4:00 - 7:30 pm and in the spring it's just one night. All the teachers are in our two gyms and we have "five to seven minute conferences" with parents.
You probably won't be surprised to find out that I don't particularly like this format. While I think it's great we dedicate time for conferences, the one-size-fits-all conference format isn't ideal, and I would much prefer that the students be present for the conference as well. (In fact, I would prefer student-led conferences, but I could live with students-at-least-being-present conferences).
Having said that, this is the format and structure I have, so I'm trying to make it be as meaningful as I can. I had intended to write this post about two weeks ago, so that I could get feedback before conferences were upon us, but that didn't happen. So, instead, I'm going to share what I just gave to my students and ask for feedback so that if I'm still in the classroom a year from now I can do this better next time.
Below is what I shared with my students (inside Google Apps - they write to the prompt and put it in a folder shared with me). I'm going to ask them to share it with their parents before conferences (I may even email it to their parents before conferences, still deciding), but I will also have it available at conferences in case they did not. I'm also going to email the parents to encourage them to come and to tell them that I think it's very important for the student to be present if at all possible.
I would love your thoughts/suggestions for ways to make it better (although please keep in mind the restrictions I'm working under - I don't have the ability to change the basic format of the nights).
Parent/Teacher Conferences are coming up next week. Since these conferences are about you, I think you should be there. It makes very little sense to me that we should have a conference about you and you’re not there, so I’m encouraging your parents to come and to bring you with them. Please bring your Algebra notebook as well, so that we can look at your work if we need to.
Whether you end up attending or not, I want you to spend some time thinking about what you want your parents to know about this class and how you are doing. Here are some questions for you to respond to.
Thanks.
At my high school we hold parent/teacher conferences in the fall and spring. In the fall it's two consecutive nights from 4:00 - 7:30 pm and in the spring it's just one night. All the teachers are in our two gyms and we have "five to seven minute conferences" with parents.
You probably won't be surprised to find out that I don't particularly like this format. While I think it's great we dedicate time for conferences, the one-size-fits-all conference format isn't ideal, and I would much prefer that the students be present for the conference as well. (In fact, I would prefer student-led conferences, but I could live with students-at-least-being-present conferences).
Having said that, this is the format and structure I have, so I'm trying to make it be as meaningful as I can. I had intended to write this post about two weeks ago, so that I could get feedback before conferences were upon us, but that didn't happen. So, instead, I'm going to share what I just gave to my students and ask for feedback so that if I'm still in the classroom a year from now I can do this better next time.
Below is what I shared with my students (inside Google Apps - they write to the prompt and put it in a folder shared with me). I'm going to ask them to share it with their parents before conferences (I may even email it to their parents before conferences, still deciding), but I will also have it available at conferences in case they did not. I'm also going to email the parents to encourage them to come and to tell them that I think it's very important for the student to be present if at all possible.
I would love your thoughts/suggestions for ways to make it better (although please keep in mind the restrictions I'm working under - I don't have the ability to change the basic format of the nights).
Parent/Teacher Conferences are coming up next week. Since these conferences are about you, I think you should be there. It makes very little sense to me that we should have a conference about you and you’re not there, so I’m encouraging your parents to come and to bring you with them. Please bring your Algebra notebook as well, so that we can look at your work if we need to.
Whether you end up attending or not, I want you to spend some time thinking about what you want your parents to know about this class and how you are doing. Here are some questions for you to respond to.
- Has class met your expectations? Why or why not?
- What’s going well for you?
- What’s challenging for you?
- What could I do as your teacher that would help you be more successful?
- What could you do as a student that would help you be more successful?
- Is there anything your parents can do to help you be more successful?
- Is there anything else you think your parents should know about this class or about how you are doing in this class?
Thanks.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Days 20-23
Okay, so clearly I didn’t get caught up on my blogging. Again, I’ll try to do a week in this post and then see if I can find time this weekend to do individual posts for this past week. Again, all links to the openers, lessons, assessments, and other stuff are contained in the class blog posts that are linked from each day.
Day 20
Today’s opener contained a problem about the world’s largest chocolate bar (used it for dimensional analysis), as well as some intercept questions. The lesson was an application of slope-intercept involving me, calories and a treadmill. I think the students appreciated the context, especially when I explained that the numbers were reasonably accurate, but I still feel like I’m doing too much of the work/thinking. I also gave them the background information for our next Skype session, with an engineer from NREL that’s working on a geothermal hvac system at a new IKEA store that’s going up in our city.
Day 21
Today’s opener contained another dimensional analysis problem, this time around texting and driving. Again, the students seemed interested in the context, and the fact that I can apparently find openers just about every day in the newspaper, but they still struggle mightily with actually completing them on their own. I’m wondering if perhaps I should start class by having them do jumping jacks instead.
The lesson for today involved weighing pennies and coming up with a linear equation to predict the weight based on the number of pennies (thanks to Frank who gave me the idea in a comment a while back). I had them place the pennies in a beaker before they weighed them so that I could manufacture a y-intercept other than zero, and I also made sure that each group had pennies that were either all pre-1982 or post-1982 (when the composition, and therefore the weight, changed).
This lesson went okay, but some of the groups collected such poor data that it was hard for them to get what I was hoping they would get. I think they more or less understood when we discussed it at the end, but I’m wondering if all the data collecting I’m having them do is perhaps getting in the way of their learning.
Day 22
We assessed on Graphing Linear Equations Using Intercepts today. Once again I thought I had prepared them well and had constructed a straightforward (and easy) assessment. Turns out I was wrong, as there was still a wide range of performance on this assessment. Some students are clearly not studying at all for these assessment but, even if that’s the case, I would hope they would still be doing better based on what we’ve done in class.
I thought the lesson today was pretty interesting, as we looked at – and graphed – data based on the current tax bracket rates, the rates proposed by the Obama administration, and the rates if the current tax policy expires. We worked with the data first, before I told them what it was. I then asked them to guess what the data represented, and one of my students did guess (surprising even himself). Again, though, I’m worrying that while I find the context of these investigations very interesting, I’m not sure they do. We then looked at some linear wind chill data as well.
Day 23
I’ve decided to try to make my openers take less time. For a while, at least, I’m removing the longer (and more interesting I think) problems in favor of problems that focus directly on the skills we’re learning. They just seem to be getting lost with the more in-depth problems, and then we also run out of time in class for our lessons, so I’m going to try this for a few weeks and see if it helps.
The lesson today gathered data on drop height versus bounce height for various types of balls (bouncy balls, tennis balls, etc.). This went okay, and they seemed to be getting the idea but, once again, at the end of the day I wonder if they would’ve gotten just as much or more out of it if I had just provided them the data instead of them collecting it.
Day 20
Today’s opener contained a problem about the world’s largest chocolate bar (used it for dimensional analysis), as well as some intercept questions. The lesson was an application of slope-intercept involving me, calories and a treadmill. I think the students appreciated the context, especially when I explained that the numbers were reasonably accurate, but I still feel like I’m doing too much of the work/thinking. I also gave them the background information for our next Skype session, with an engineer from NREL that’s working on a geothermal hvac system at a new IKEA store that’s going up in our city.
Day 21
Today’s opener contained another dimensional analysis problem, this time around texting and driving. Again, the students seemed interested in the context, and the fact that I can apparently find openers just about every day in the newspaper, but they still struggle mightily with actually completing them on their own. I’m wondering if perhaps I should start class by having them do jumping jacks instead.
The lesson for today involved weighing pennies and coming up with a linear equation to predict the weight based on the number of pennies (thanks to Frank who gave me the idea in a comment a while back). I had them place the pennies in a beaker before they weighed them so that I could manufacture a y-intercept other than zero, and I also made sure that each group had pennies that were either all pre-1982 or post-1982 (when the composition, and therefore the weight, changed).
This lesson went okay, but some of the groups collected such poor data that it was hard for them to get what I was hoping they would get. I think they more or less understood when we discussed it at the end, but I’m wondering if all the data collecting I’m having them do is perhaps getting in the way of their learning.
Day 22
We assessed on Graphing Linear Equations Using Intercepts today. Once again I thought I had prepared them well and had constructed a straightforward (and easy) assessment. Turns out I was wrong, as there was still a wide range of performance on this assessment. Some students are clearly not studying at all for these assessment but, even if that’s the case, I would hope they would still be doing better based on what we’ve done in class.
I thought the lesson today was pretty interesting, as we looked at – and graphed – data based on the current tax bracket rates, the rates proposed by the Obama administration, and the rates if the current tax policy expires. We worked with the data first, before I told them what it was. I then asked them to guess what the data represented, and one of my students did guess (surprising even himself). Again, though, I’m worrying that while I find the context of these investigations very interesting, I’m not sure they do. We then looked at some linear wind chill data as well.
Day 23
I’ve decided to try to make my openers take less time. For a while, at least, I’m removing the longer (and more interesting I think) problems in favor of problems that focus directly on the skills we’re learning. They just seem to be getting lost with the more in-depth problems, and then we also run out of time in class for our lessons, so I’m going to try this for a few weeks and see if it helps.
The lesson today gathered data on drop height versus bounce height for various types of balls (bouncy balls, tennis balls, etc.). This went okay, and they seemed to be getting the idea but, once again, at the end of the day I wonder if they would’ve gotten just as much or more out of it if I had just provided them the data instead of them collecting it.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Days 16 - 19
Sorry, I got kinda busy the last couple of weeks, so I’m going to try to cover all of last week in this post (obviously not quite as in-depth as usual), and then try to catch up with individual posts for the four days this week. To save time I’m going to simply start linking to the individual days on the class blog where you can find links to the openers, lessons and videos, instead of linking them individually. I hope that works for you. Here we go.
Day 16
Today we took the assessment for Solving Equations with Variables on Both Sides. I was concerned about giving an assessment on a Monday for all the usual reasons, but with a four-day-a-week class and the frequency of my assessments, there’s really no good way around it. (Plus, philosophically, I don’t think it should make a difference giving an assessment on a Monday, it they know, they know it.) The results were pretty much what I expected, which was slightly disappointing. They didn’t do as well as I had hoped and it was clear that many of the students hadn’t thought about Algebra since they walked out the door at 8:20 am on Friday. I’m really struggling with the lack of effort some of the students are giving outside of class (and this seems to be a common complaint among other teachers of freshmen at my school this year).
After the assessment we did a quick review of graphing an equation by making a table, and then moved on to the lesson, which was a distance/rate/time problem that we attacked using recursive sequences. Once again I’m worried that I’m scaffolding this too much for them, but whenever I try to back off and let them take more ownership they flounder. This is going to be a continuing theme for me I think. My other concern today was their continued difficulties with the concept of speed and how you figure out how fast someone is going. We have already done a few distance/rate/time problems and I know they’ve done some in science before, plus I thought that speed was somewhat of an intuitive concept for most students. Yet they can’t seem to translate “how far I’ve gone and how long it took me” into actually calculate a rate.
Their homework was to watch the Graphing Linear Equations by Using a Table video as well as finish the lesson for the day. This was a little more than I intended to give them, but we didn’t get as far in class as I had hoped, and they do have two days to work on this. I encouraged them to come in on Tuesday (the day they don’t have me) for help if they were struggling.
Day 17
This was a day I had high hopes for in terms of engagement, as I invited in several folks (two assistant principals and our media specialist) to be guest participants in an activity. We walked down to our gym hallway where there was a little more room, I setup a 50 m tape and then the guests performed eight ten-second “walks” as the kids noted their position at each second. I had given the participants written directions ahead of time (“Start at 0. Walk at about 1 m/s for 3 seconds, then stop for 3 seconds, then walk at about 1 m/s for 4 more seconds”) and then I counted out the seconds and the students wrote down the positions.
This turned out to be more difficult for the students than I had expected, and then collating the data took a long time (which I did expect), so we’re going to finish this activity on Friday.
Their homework was to take the Graphing Linear Equations by Using a Table pre-assessment and to make sure they had all the data we collected written down.
Day 18
This was another Carnegie Hall day (“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice) to give them some repetition of some skills and hopefully prepare them well for their assessment tomorrow. My class seems all over the place on their ability to plot points (something they’ve done before in multiple classes), and they are still struggling mightily with simply substituting in values and evaluating expressions correctly. I told them today that I’d love for them to be able to do this without a calculator but, if they find themselves getting things wrong often, I want them to use the calculator to be sure. So, do it in your head first, then verify with the calculator. I don’t think I convinced many of them.
Their homework tonight was to finish the review worksheet if they wanted to (we did most of the graphing problems in class, but then there was a spiral review of earlier topics), or they could save the non-graphing review problems for the weekend if they wanted to. Then they also needed to review for the assessment tomorrow. I feel like I’m communicating well in terms of what they should do to review for assessments, but I’m not sure I’m getting through.
Day 19
The assessment over Graphing Linear Equations by Using a Table was today – and, overall, they bombed it. Several factors here I think: Homecoming Week, two assessments in one week, me not standing over their shoulder making them do the homework, their difficulties in substituting and evaluating, and perhaps too high of expectations on my part in terms of their readiness to take ownership over their own learning. Back to the drawing board.
After the assessment we then worked with the data we collected on Wednesday and they seemed to be getting the hang of it. We had a shortened class due to the Homecoming Pep Assembly, so I once again left them with more of the lesson to finish for homework that I would like (this is getting to be a bad habit on my part – I really need to fix my timing issues). They also need to watch the next video, Graphing Linear Equations by Using Intercepts over the weekend.
I felt like this week was a step back for me and my class, hopefully next week will be better.
Day 16
Today we took the assessment for Solving Equations with Variables on Both Sides. I was concerned about giving an assessment on a Monday for all the usual reasons, but with a four-day-a-week class and the frequency of my assessments, there’s really no good way around it. (Plus, philosophically, I don’t think it should make a difference giving an assessment on a Monday, it they know, they know it.) The results were pretty much what I expected, which was slightly disappointing. They didn’t do as well as I had hoped and it was clear that many of the students hadn’t thought about Algebra since they walked out the door at 8:20 am on Friday. I’m really struggling with the lack of effort some of the students are giving outside of class (and this seems to be a common complaint among other teachers of freshmen at my school this year).
After the assessment we did a quick review of graphing an equation by making a table, and then moved on to the lesson, which was a distance/rate/time problem that we attacked using recursive sequences. Once again I’m worried that I’m scaffolding this too much for them, but whenever I try to back off and let them take more ownership they flounder. This is going to be a continuing theme for me I think. My other concern today was their continued difficulties with the concept of speed and how you figure out how fast someone is going. We have already done a few distance/rate/time problems and I know they’ve done some in science before, plus I thought that speed was somewhat of an intuitive concept for most students. Yet they can’t seem to translate “how far I’ve gone and how long it took me” into actually calculate a rate.
Their homework was to watch the Graphing Linear Equations by Using a Table video as well as finish the lesson for the day. This was a little more than I intended to give them, but we didn’t get as far in class as I had hoped, and they do have two days to work on this. I encouraged them to come in on Tuesday (the day they don’t have me) for help if they were struggling.
Day 17
This was a day I had high hopes for in terms of engagement, as I invited in several folks (two assistant principals and our media specialist) to be guest participants in an activity. We walked down to our gym hallway where there was a little more room, I setup a 50 m tape and then the guests performed eight ten-second “walks” as the kids noted their position at each second. I had given the participants written directions ahead of time (“Start at 0. Walk at about 1 m/s for 3 seconds, then stop for 3 seconds, then walk at about 1 m/s for 4 more seconds”) and then I counted out the seconds and the students wrote down the positions.
This turned out to be more difficult for the students than I had expected, and then collating the data took a long time (which I did expect), so we’re going to finish this activity on Friday.
Their homework was to take the Graphing Linear Equations by Using a Table pre-assessment and to make sure they had all the data we collected written down.
Day 18
This was another Carnegie Hall day (“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice) to give them some repetition of some skills and hopefully prepare them well for their assessment tomorrow. My class seems all over the place on their ability to plot points (something they’ve done before in multiple classes), and they are still struggling mightily with simply substituting in values and evaluating expressions correctly. I told them today that I’d love for them to be able to do this without a calculator but, if they find themselves getting things wrong often, I want them to use the calculator to be sure. So, do it in your head first, then verify with the calculator. I don’t think I convinced many of them.
Their homework tonight was to finish the review worksheet if they wanted to (we did most of the graphing problems in class, but then there was a spiral review of earlier topics), or they could save the non-graphing review problems for the weekend if they wanted to. Then they also needed to review for the assessment tomorrow. I feel like I’m communicating well in terms of what they should do to review for assessments, but I’m not sure I’m getting through.
Day 19
The assessment over Graphing Linear Equations by Using a Table was today – and, overall, they bombed it. Several factors here I think: Homecoming Week, two assessments in one week, me not standing over their shoulder making them do the homework, their difficulties in substituting and evaluating, and perhaps too high of expectations on my part in terms of their readiness to take ownership over their own learning. Back to the drawing board.
After the assessment we then worked with the data we collected on Wednesday and they seemed to be getting the hang of it. We had a shortened class due to the Homecoming Pep Assembly, so I once again left them with more of the lesson to finish for homework that I would like (this is getting to be a bad habit on my part – I really need to fix my timing issues). They also need to watch the next video, Graphing Linear Equations by Using Intercepts over the weekend.
I felt like this week was a step back for me and my class, hopefully next week will be better.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Day 15
Today went well (I think). It felt much more relaxed, perhaps because I got the timing right for one of the few times this year. The students have also seemed more relaxed the last few days, joking around with me more at the beginning of class (although they still get too quiet as we move deeper into class and content).
The opener (pdf) was designed to reinforce some basic distributive property stuff, give them some practice on solving equations with variables on both sides (formal assessment over that is on Monday), and to remind them/introduce them to the concept of a sequence. They did reasonably well with these, although I’m still concerned with the number of students who can’t do problems like 1a correctly (with a calculator).
The lesson (pdf) was then an introduction to recursive sequences (this is leading to writing linear equations and the concept of slope). It was also an opportunity to show them one of the features of their graphing calculators – the ANS key. (Not all of the students have graphing calculators, but I made new groups this week to make sure at least one student in each group, and usually more, has a graphing calculator).
So they built the patterns out of toothpicks and pretty easily saw the rules for number of toothpicks and perimeter. I then showed them how they could build a recursive routine into their calculators using braces and the ANS key so that they could quickly generate results for additional figures. They then pretty easily came up with the number of toothpicks and the perimeter for figure 25. (As cool as this is, we’ll eventually transition to, “Well, what if we needed to know figure 125, or 1125? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a quicker way?” Bingo, let’s right an expression/equation.)
They fairly easily then replicated this process with a sequence of squares, although I did lose a few students who were more interested in creating artwork with the toothpicks. My favorite quote of the week was from a student who said, “Mr. Fisch, do you ever worry that parents are going to call you when they find out we were playing with toothpicks in Algebra class?”
Their homework was to prepare for their assessment over Solving Equations with Variables on Both Sides on Monday (and, yes, I’m a little worried about giving it on a Monday), and to plan how they might want to participate in Homecoming Week (pdf) next week.
The opener (pdf) was designed to reinforce some basic distributive property stuff, give them some practice on solving equations with variables on both sides (formal assessment over that is on Monday), and to remind them/introduce them to the concept of a sequence. They did reasonably well with these, although I’m still concerned with the number of students who can’t do problems like 1a correctly (with a calculator).
The lesson (pdf) was then an introduction to recursive sequences (this is leading to writing linear equations and the concept of slope). It was also an opportunity to show them one of the features of their graphing calculators – the ANS key. (Not all of the students have graphing calculators, but I made new groups this week to make sure at least one student in each group, and usually more, has a graphing calculator).
So they built the patterns out of toothpicks and pretty easily saw the rules for number of toothpicks and perimeter. I then showed them how they could build a recursive routine into their calculators using braces and the ANS key so that they could quickly generate results for additional figures. They then pretty easily came up with the number of toothpicks and the perimeter for figure 25. (As cool as this is, we’ll eventually transition to, “Well, what if we needed to know figure 125, or 1125? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a quicker way?” Bingo, let’s right an expression/equation.)
They fairly easily then replicated this process with a sequence of squares, although I did lose a few students who were more interested in creating artwork with the toothpicks. My favorite quote of the week was from a student who said, “Mr. Fisch, do you ever worry that parents are going to call you when they find out we were playing with toothpicks in Algebra class?”
Their homework was to prepare for their assessment over Solving Equations with Variables on Both Sides on Monday (and, yes, I’m a little worried about giving it on a Monday), and to plan how they might want to participate in Homecoming Week (pdf) next week.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Day 14
Today went better. It was a Carnegie Hall day.
We then attacked a series of problems (lesson, pdf), divided into distributive property (they did well on) and solving equations with variables on both sides (mixed results, but definite progress). I had hoped we would get through the third section (graphing on a coordinate plane), which would’ve just left review problems for homework, but no such luck. Still, they only had those two sections for homework, as well as completing their online pre-assessment for solving equations with variables on both sides.
I had this day planned well in advance but, in retrospect, it would’ve been better if I’d done this yesterday. I think the students would’ve been much less stressed, and I know I would’ve felt better about things. If I’m still in the classroom next year, this post will help remind me what to do differently.
If you’re kinda sorta following along with this blog, take a look at Jason’s thoughtful comment on flow on yesterday’s post. He makes some great points, and in my reply comments to him I try to explain why I’ve made some of the choices I’ve made. I appreciate the comments folks are submitting, as it’s helping me re-examine what I’m doing from another perspective and sometimes make changes (and sometimes re-justify to myself why I’m sticking with something).
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice, practice, practice.They seemed more confident on the opener (pdf), even though questions 3 and 4 were something they just had last night in the video that was for homework. Now, that doesn’t mean they all understood how to do it, but enough of them did that it makes me think we might be on the right track. Then, as the students worked them out on the smart board and I then went back over them, I saw several more light bulbs go on for students. (And, later in the day, I had a student come in for help for the first time unprompted. I’ve had students come in before, but always prompted directly by me.)
We then attacked a series of problems (lesson, pdf), divided into distributive property (they did well on) and solving equations with variables on both sides (mixed results, but definite progress). I had hoped we would get through the third section (graphing on a coordinate plane), which would’ve just left review problems for homework, but no such luck. Still, they only had those two sections for homework, as well as completing their online pre-assessment for solving equations with variables on both sides.
I had this day planned well in advance but, in retrospect, it would’ve been better if I’d done this yesterday. I think the students would’ve been much less stressed, and I know I would’ve felt better about things. If I’m still in the classroom next year, this post will help remind me what to do differently.
If you’re kinda sorta following along with this blog, take a look at Jason’s thoughtful comment on flow on yesterday’s post. He makes some great points, and in my reply comments to him I try to explain why I’ve made some of the choices I’ve made. I appreciate the comments folks are submitting, as it’s helping me re-examine what I’m doing from another perspective and sometimes make changes (and sometimes re-justify to myself why I’m sticking with something).
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Day 13
Today was . . . confusing. I’m pretty sure it was confusing for my students, but it was also confusing for me. We started with the usual opener (pdf) and they seemed pretty stumped again. At this point I’m expecting them to be able to do a straightforward order of operations problem, particularly because they have calculators. That wasn’t the case, as some of them struggled with 1a.
I knew they would struggle some with 1b, as I could tell when they did the openers on Friday that they weren’t very comfortable with distributive property. (Note to self: I need to find out for sure what they’ve had in middle school. I know in the past that distributive property was something they had been exposed too, but now I’m wondering if perhaps that’s not the case anymore). I wasn’t that concerned that they struggled with 1b, as this was another opportunity for them to see how to do it, and because I know tomorrow I’m going to give them more practice with it.
Question 2, however, was a little bit depressing. While I knew some students would struggle with it, I wasn’t prepared for the number of students who apparently had no idea where to start. I referred back to what we did on Friday (suggesting they look back at our work from Friday if they didn’t remember), and referred to the video they watched on solving two-step equations. I was anticipating that they would be able to do column 3, “undo the steps,” and struggle a bit with column 4, “The Algebra,” yet many were unable to even start the undo the steps column. I think this confirms my supposition that at the end of the day Friday they didn’t get it quite as well as I had hoped, but I’m also frustrated since I thought the video they watched should’ve helped solidify the idea of simply doing the inverse (opposite) operation. When I ask how to “undo” something they all seem to know, yet they can’t come up with what to ask on their own. I’m hopeful that when we do some more practice problems tomorrow (no new stuff) it will begin to click for more students.
Then the lesson (pdf) today was equally frustrating. (Note: image from Discovering Algebra from Key Curriculum Press). We did what I thought was going to be a quick and straightforward experiment, using their textbooks as a ramp and rolling pencils off of them, and then measuring how far they rolled. Then we were going to plot the points and see if there was a relationship (greater the height of the ramp, the farther the pencil rolled). I’m not sure if it’s just too early in the morning, or if I did a really bad job explaining this, but they moved through this so lethargically that it felt like by the end they had no idea why we did it. Again, I’m feeling conflicted about how much scaffolding I need to give them to be successful, versus my philosophy that they need to be problem solvers themselves.
Then we moved on to a data set from the U.S. Department of Transportation, showing the average fuel efficiency of U.S. passenger cars by year since 1980. I pulled the chart from the web and then started a table for them. I then asked them to copy the year and the mileage from the chart into the appropriate columns in the table, and then in a third column they had to calculate the years since 1980. I demonstrated with the first three points to make sure they knew what I was asking them to do, then asked them to complete the rest of the table (they did not have to copy the actual chart itself). That proved really difficult for some of them, so once again I’m questioning my assumptions about what is reasonable to expect 14 and 15 year olds to do. Should transferring information from the chart to a table, when I setup the table and help them with the first three data points, be pretty straightforward as I think it is, or is that unreasonable?
Either way, that took much longer than I anticipated (yeah, back to my poor timing issues that I thought I had resolved). As some students had finished their tables and others were still working, I revealed step 2 so that the students who had finished could start on their graphs. Again, I worried that I was scaffolding too much by telling them to scale both axes by 1’s. It turns out that that wasn’t enough scaffolding for many, as they labeled their x-axis 0, 5, 10, 11, 12, . . . Once again, my assumption was that they have done some graphing previously and that this wasn’t completely new for them. So, again, I need to find out for sure (in my own defense, I did ask the students if they have graphed previously and they say they have).
I then talked through steps 3 through 5 to make sure they knew what I was asking for, and then gave those to them for homework (as well as a few will need to finish the graph as they did not finish in class). I’ve been working really hard at not trying to play “gotcha” with checking their homework, but I think I may be wavering a little bit on that. Every day I talk about the importance of doing whatever I’m asking them to do outside of class, and the importance of coming in for help when they don’t understand, but the blank looks are starting to wear on me a bit. My philosophy of continuing to trust them and share with them the reasons I’m asking them to do things, and then giving them time to figure it out and start stepping up will eventually have to end if they don’t step up. As I said to someone I was talking about this with today, eventually if it’s not working for my students, then I’ll have to change something as I do have a limited amount of time with them (even if I think that’s detrimental to them in the long run).
Today felt like I stepped back about two weeks.
I knew they would struggle some with 1b, as I could tell when they did the openers on Friday that they weren’t very comfortable with distributive property. (Note to self: I need to find out for sure what they’ve had in middle school. I know in the past that distributive property was something they had been exposed too, but now I’m wondering if perhaps that’s not the case anymore). I wasn’t that concerned that they struggled with 1b, as this was another opportunity for them to see how to do it, and because I know tomorrow I’m going to give them more practice with it.
Question 2, however, was a little bit depressing. While I knew some students would struggle with it, I wasn’t prepared for the number of students who apparently had no idea where to start. I referred back to what we did on Friday (suggesting they look back at our work from Friday if they didn’t remember), and referred to the video they watched on solving two-step equations. I was anticipating that they would be able to do column 3, “undo the steps,” and struggle a bit with column 4, “The Algebra,” yet many were unable to even start the undo the steps column. I think this confirms my supposition that at the end of the day Friday they didn’t get it quite as well as I had hoped, but I’m also frustrated since I thought the video they watched should’ve helped solidify the idea of simply doing the inverse (opposite) operation. When I ask how to “undo” something they all seem to know, yet they can’t come up with what to ask on their own. I’m hopeful that when we do some more practice problems tomorrow (no new stuff) it will begin to click for more students.
Then the lesson (pdf) today was equally frustrating. (Note: image from Discovering Algebra from Key Curriculum Press). We did what I thought was going to be a quick and straightforward experiment, using their textbooks as a ramp and rolling pencils off of them, and then measuring how far they rolled. Then we were going to plot the points and see if there was a relationship (greater the height of the ramp, the farther the pencil rolled). I’m not sure if it’s just too early in the morning, or if I did a really bad job explaining this, but they moved through this so lethargically that it felt like by the end they had no idea why we did it. Again, I’m feeling conflicted about how much scaffolding I need to give them to be successful, versus my philosophy that they need to be problem solvers themselves.
Then we moved on to a data set from the U.S. Department of Transportation, showing the average fuel efficiency of U.S. passenger cars by year since 1980. I pulled the chart from the web and then started a table for them. I then asked them to copy the year and the mileage from the chart into the appropriate columns in the table, and then in a third column they had to calculate the years since 1980. I demonstrated with the first three points to make sure they knew what I was asking them to do, then asked them to complete the rest of the table (they did not have to copy the actual chart itself). That proved really difficult for some of them, so once again I’m questioning my assumptions about what is reasonable to expect 14 and 15 year olds to do. Should transferring information from the chart to a table, when I setup the table and help them with the first three data points, be pretty straightforward as I think it is, or is that unreasonable?
Either way, that took much longer than I anticipated (yeah, back to my poor timing issues that I thought I had resolved). As some students had finished their tables and others were still working, I revealed step 2 so that the students who had finished could start on their graphs. Again, I worried that I was scaffolding too much by telling them to scale both axes by 1’s. It turns out that that wasn’t enough scaffolding for many, as they labeled their x-axis 0, 5, 10, 11, 12, . . . Once again, my assumption was that they have done some graphing previously and that this wasn’t completely new for them. So, again, I need to find out for sure (in my own defense, I did ask the students if they have graphed previously and they say they have).
I then talked through steps 3 through 5 to make sure they knew what I was asking for, and then gave those to them for homework (as well as a few will need to finish the graph as they did not finish in class). I’ve been working really hard at not trying to play “gotcha” with checking their homework, but I think I may be wavering a little bit on that. Every day I talk about the importance of doing whatever I’m asking them to do outside of class, and the importance of coming in for help when they don’t understand, but the blank looks are starting to wear on me a bit. My philosophy of continuing to trust them and share with them the reasons I’m asking them to do things, and then giving them time to figure it out and start stepping up will eventually have to end if they don’t step up. As I said to someone I was talking about this with today, eventually if it’s not working for my students, then I’ll have to change something as I do have a limited amount of time with them (even if I think that’s detrimental to them in the long run).
Today felt like I stepped back about two weeks.
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