Day 5

As a reminder, this is day five of my class, but it will be Monday of the second week since my class only meets four days a week.

The opener today is designed to build off the work we did on Friday as well as the video they watched for homework.

As they are working on the opener I will be walking around and looking at their notebooks to make sure they have the "Self-Check" problems from the video written down. This is somewhat of a philosophical dilemma for me. Last year I made the philosophical decision to not check whether they had watched the video. I explained to them that I expected them to watch the videos and that they needed to watch the videos in order to be successful, but that I wasn't going to look over their shoulder to make sure they did it. I continued to talk about this throughout the year, and it worked well for some students, but unfortunately other students had real difficulty completing these videos without me "checking up on them." So this year I've decided to backtrack a bit and check that they're watching the videos/completing the self-check exercises, at least at the beginning of the year. Then hopefully gradually back away from that throughout the year as they internalize that the videos are helping them. We'll see.

After they work on the openers individually, and then in their table groups, we'll discuss them as a class. Then today's lesson is to look at ratio, proportion and percent in the context of a sampling problem. We'll begin with a 3.5 minute video from Discovery Education on the Capture-Recapture Method of estimating animal populations. After watching the video we'll simulate the capture-recapture method using paper bags and two colors of beans (in the context of sampling fish at a nearby reservoir).

After working through the simulation, we'll then see if it took hold by completing three sample "application" problems. Assuming that goes okay, we'll then talk about how we could sample our class to try to predict answers for the entire school (or a class across the hall). The "freshmen" question is designed to get them thinking about what a good sample might look like (since my class is majority freshmen, this is not a good sample for the school, but might be for an Algebra class at the school). (Note: On all these images keep in mind that they are on a smart board and I'm using the window shade to control how much is visible at one time.)

If we have time, we'll then conclude with a quick skill review..

 

We'll then talk briefly about their homework for tonight, which is to complete the Solving Proportions and Percents Online Pre-Assessment. My plan is to use these in a very similar way to the way I did last year. Usually two class periods before an assessment I'll have the students complete a sample online pre-assessment. This gives them an idea of how they'll do on the actual assessment and gives them some time to get help/figure it out before the assessment that "counts." I ask them to write down the problems in their notebook and work them out, then click on "Check Your Work" to see how they did (and correct if necessary). I'll also give them an optional link if they'd like more practice, but it is completely optional.

A second piece of homework, but one that's not due until Friday (four days from now), is their first reflection piece:

Looking back at your first week in Algebra (and, for some of you, your first week at AHS), how are you feeling? What's going well or you're excited about? What's challenging or are you concerned about? Then I want you to set three goals for yourself for this semester. One goal specifically related to Algebra, one goal related to AHS in general (can be related to classwork, sports, activities, or something else at AHS), and one goal outside of AHS. Make these goals fairly specific, not just "I want to get a good grade." I'll be asking you to revisit these goals toward the end of the semester and evaluate how well you're doing on them, so make them be worthwhile and achievable.

Last year we did this in Google Docs, but this year I've decided to go ahead and have them blog them. I debated about whether I wanted these private (in Google Docs, so that they could perhaps be more honest and share more information), or public (Blogger, where they might feel somewhat constrained because it's public). Last year I really didn't have anything shared that I think wouldn't have been if they'd been public, so I want to open this up for all the usual reasons for why blogging can be powerful. I'll also let the students know that if they have anything they'd like to share but not publicly, to just let me know.

I'm a little worried that's too much homework, but I figure the pre-assessment only takes 10-15 minutes and the reflection isn't due until Friday (and they have Thursday "off" of Algebra), so I'm hoping it's not too bad.

As always, I'd appreciate your thoughts/suggestions on any of the above.

Day 4

As a reminder, my Algebra class meets four days a week (MTWF), so day four is going to be a Friday but it will be two days after our day three meeting on Wednesday. Today is really the first day that is my "own" in Algebra. The first semester of Algebra at my school is basically all about linear equations, and I start by taking a look at proportional thinking - more specifically, ratios and proportions.

My opener today is designed to build off the skills review/assessment they just had and help front-load some ideas for today's lesson. At the moment (assume that phrase for all planning posts on this blog), this is what it looks like:

As a reminder, students are expected to begin the opener by the time the bell rings. They then work on it for a little while individually, then discuss with their group members, then students come up to the smart board and explain them to the class (with that getting saved to PDF and posted to the class blog).

We then open the lesson with a bit of vocabulary.

Then I try to lead them into solving proportions by starting with something they hopefully can do somewhat intuitively: "When you divide some number N by 2 you get 12. What's the value of N?"

From that we move slowly toward doing the inverse operation, to "undo" dividing by 2 we would multiply by 2; to undo dividing by 4 we would multiply by 4.

But then what happens when we throw a fraction into the mix? Hopefully they'll see that the same principle applies. From there they work through several examples with the variable in the numerator, then we try to extend to having the variable in the denominator.

At this point I really want them to focus on inverse operations, so I'm not showing them to "cross-multiply" to solve proportions.

Assuming things are going reasonably well at this point, I then introduce a hopefully somewhat interesting application of proportions.

In my head we still have about 10-15 minutes left in class (but often my head is very, very wrong), so we'll try to make a quick geometry connection. (If we don't have the time, we'll skip this - perhaps taking a look at it the next day.)

How ever much we get through gets posted to the class blog as a PDF.

We will then talk briefly about how I expect them to work through (and take notes on) the videos, as their homework will be to watch/work through the Solving Proportions and Percents video.





While I'll probably tweak it, this is what I wrote last year on the blog to follow-up what we talked about in class.

We previewed the Solving Proportions and Percents video that you're going to watch for homework tonight and talked about the different pieces in it, how you should use it, and what you need to write down in your notebook. There are three main parts to the video: an Examples and Explanation part, a Guided Practice part, and a Self-Check part.

Examples and Explanation: Just what it sounds like. I explain how to do the problems and work through some examples. You don't need to write anything down (unless you want to), just watch, listen and learn. Pause the video and replay parts if you need to.

Guided Practice: I give you a problem, then ask you a series of questions with about 5 second pauses between questions for you to think about it and answer it for yourself. If you need to, pause the video to give yourself more time. Again, you don't have to write anything down here (although you can and it may be a good idea to).

Self-Check: I give you a problem, ask you to write it down in your notebook and solve it, then I show you the solution in the video. Once the problem is on the screen you need to pause the video, write it down and solve it, then play the video again to check your work. You may need to pause the video again to view the solution if you need more time. These problems you definitely need to write down in your notebook.

Remember, you can always replay any part of the video you need to go back over something.

I would love to hear your thoughts/feedback/suggestions for improvement on any/all of this.