Well there has been another absence on this blog once again. That's alright though, nothing all that big happened to me last week. Except it was what I have come to call my Zombie week. Last week I had been working on my portfolio and Lamp projects a lot and was spending less and less time preparing for my everyday "job" of teaching in my classroom. I felt like I was just running through the motions, and sure enough I was. My cooperating teacher was keen about letting me know about it. I sucked up the criticism with pride and realized that I was lacking in performance and it seemed that I didn't want to be there. With an attitude like that, your students tend to be non-responsive and tend to behave rather disrespectfully. Countdown to ISTEP has been something of a struggle for me as well. This is something that becomes not only boring and repetitive for the students, but boring as a teacher to distribute every day in each class. It makes it especially hard to plan because it takes almost half the class sometimes. Either way, this didn't help in the contribution to what I am now calling my Zombie week. As a teacher, I can't have bad days, I can only have good days or better days.
On Friday, I gave out a test on Solving Quadratic Equations and Functions. I thought this would be a really easy test, considering we had beeon wroking on this stuff for a long time, and I allowed open notes. I hope I'm right, even though I am ending up allowing more time on Monday for students to work on the test, in an effort to allow enough time for them to work.
I attended and helped at a track meet held at the middle school on Thursday of last week. It was beautiful outside and they were playing the neighboring middle school that many of my friends had participated their practicum in. This was fun and interesting, mainly because I attended the event in very leisurely attire. I wore shorts and my favorite hat. Most of my students came up to say hello to me, and it was great to cheer some of them on. I helped time the running events and talked with coaches about field events. I was legitimately interested in how track and fields worked from a coaching perspective. It was great to see the team win and to see some of the phenomenal athletes at the school I teach at. It was really rewarding to see the kids' faces when they saw that I was there to support them.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Monday April 11th
Well, I know I haven't posted in a week, but I was pretty busy. To sum up last week, here I go: I had to remediate like a son-of-a-gun, and on Thursday, my university supervisor came in and gave me pretty solid reviews. However, just as I thought, I need work on how much time something will take in class. Apparently, this is something you never get perfect at as a teacher because your students change every year, at least that's what my cooperating teacher said. That's about all I have to say about last week, and really it's been pretty hard to keep up with this daily blog and everything else going on in my life right now. Trying to do this daily blog was a good idea, but just has become something more of an obstacle than something I enjoy writing about now.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
April 1st
Well it's April Fool's day on a Friday, and let's just say I am a little nervous about what the students might try to pull for pranks on me. I didn't have any pranks planned for my students, because I wanted to make sure I focused on what was going on for the day, which was a quiz I was giving to each class, as a way to test and assess where they stand on the material we were working on. I assumed that these students would basically ace these quizzes.
Pre-Algebra Classes
The original idea behind these quizzes is that it was only going to take them 15-20 minutes. It took both classes more like 25-30 minutes as a whole. Which was a little disheartening, but the more I looked at the quizzes and tests, the more I noticed that the students who paid attention did well on the quiz, and the ones who never seemed to pay attention were the ones who asked for the most help. Correlation? Yes, of course it makes sense that the students who pay attention and do what they are supposed to do, do well on tests and quizzes. Some students just have trouble with a few ideas of multiplying and dividing with the distributive property, but it seemed that most students did pretty well. What does this mean? This means that I think I have done a good job teaching the material and that they should be ready to move on to a new subject. At least that's what it seemed like. When they finished, I had them do a color by answer type problem. During 1st hour, I kind of messed up the whole thing because I didn't assign a color for each answer, so students could have colored it really whatever color they wanted. I didn't have a whole lot of time to put it together before 1st hour because I got there later than anticipated, so I forgot to. However, during my 3rd period prep, I fixed this problem and 5th hour was able to do it the correct way.
Algebra Classes
I was really confident when I was handing out my quizzes, I had practiced the quiz before hand, but made a little mental error in the creation of my solve by graphing problem. I made the vertex and axis of symmetry pretty hard to graph. What I was going for was simple answers, or solutions, to the problem, and I didn't put enough thought into the whole process in graphing such a difficult problem. I was extremely disappointed in how many students still didn't have their notes. Their notes really would have helped them on their quiz. There were a few problems on solving either by factoring or completing the square. Many students had the completing the square technique and process down pat the day before, so I thought this part would go extremely well. It was obvious the kids were giving up too easily and not following the proper directions I gave them in class. Students even forgot how to factor, which is unacceptable considering we worked on factoring polynomials for weeks at a time. It turned from a quiz/assessment to a cooperative learning experience. Which is alright. It just means that they need more work with completing the square and factoring. Good thing the plan is to review this on Monday for the upcoming STI test. It wasn't surprising to see the students who got it, got it, and the students I knew would have trouble, had tons of trouble. Sometimes I have heard that the students want my teacher to teach a certain subject because he explained it extremely well to one student separately. I don't want to just tell them how to solve every problem they do, so when I go over homework, I ask them all what I should be doing next. I am doing my best, so when a student tells me I'm not doing it well enough, it really gets me going because I want to do the best I can.
My 4th hour class got me on a good April Fool's Prank today during their reading time. Before 4th hour, I have to watch the boys bathroom around the corner from my room. I had a feeling something was up when the normal group that walks past me didn't take the same route to class. I just assumed maybe they were stopping into another class. A student "stalled" me by asking me questions on my way to class, and when I got there, a few students were missing. I asked where one in particular was, and they all agreed that he had a referral and was sent down to the office. (believable with this student) So I thought nothing of it. For the first 10 minutes of class, students are supposed to read their Accelerated Reading books. Well, none of them had it, and they kept asking for graphing calculators, which were located in a closet to the back left of where I teach in the classroom. I convinced them that I would be reading them a book in class since no one brought a book. Then my teacher harped up and said "Well there are some sports magazines in that closet for them to read." So of course I thought I was home free for pranks, but when I opened the door, the student that "had a referral" jumped out and scared the living tar out of me. He claimed later in class that I had a "look of terror" when he jumped out of that closet. At least I know the kids like me enough to come up with a prank.
Apparently, they wanted to all leave the room before I got there, but of course the notion of that idea was not entertained and shut down immediately upon request by my cooperating teacher.
Pre-Algebra Classes
The original idea behind these quizzes is that it was only going to take them 15-20 minutes. It took both classes more like 25-30 minutes as a whole. Which was a little disheartening, but the more I looked at the quizzes and tests, the more I noticed that the students who paid attention did well on the quiz, and the ones who never seemed to pay attention were the ones who asked for the most help. Correlation? Yes, of course it makes sense that the students who pay attention and do what they are supposed to do, do well on tests and quizzes. Some students just have trouble with a few ideas of multiplying and dividing with the distributive property, but it seemed that most students did pretty well. What does this mean? This means that I think I have done a good job teaching the material and that they should be ready to move on to a new subject. At least that's what it seemed like. When they finished, I had them do a color by answer type problem. During 1st hour, I kind of messed up the whole thing because I didn't assign a color for each answer, so students could have colored it really whatever color they wanted. I didn't have a whole lot of time to put it together before 1st hour because I got there later than anticipated, so I forgot to. However, during my 3rd period prep, I fixed this problem and 5th hour was able to do it the correct way.
Algebra Classes
I was really confident when I was handing out my quizzes, I had practiced the quiz before hand, but made a little mental error in the creation of my solve by graphing problem. I made the vertex and axis of symmetry pretty hard to graph. What I was going for was simple answers, or solutions, to the problem, and I didn't put enough thought into the whole process in graphing such a difficult problem. I was extremely disappointed in how many students still didn't have their notes. Their notes really would have helped them on their quiz. There were a few problems on solving either by factoring or completing the square. Many students had the completing the square technique and process down pat the day before, so I thought this part would go extremely well. It was obvious the kids were giving up too easily and not following the proper directions I gave them in class. Students even forgot how to factor, which is unacceptable considering we worked on factoring polynomials for weeks at a time. It turned from a quiz/assessment to a cooperative learning experience. Which is alright. It just means that they need more work with completing the square and factoring. Good thing the plan is to review this on Monday for the upcoming STI test. It wasn't surprising to see the students who got it, got it, and the students I knew would have trouble, had tons of trouble. Sometimes I have heard that the students want my teacher to teach a certain subject because he explained it extremely well to one student separately. I don't want to just tell them how to solve every problem they do, so when I go over homework, I ask them all what I should be doing next. I am doing my best, so when a student tells me I'm not doing it well enough, it really gets me going because I want to do the best I can.
My 4th hour class got me on a good April Fool's Prank today during their reading time. Before 4th hour, I have to watch the boys bathroom around the corner from my room. I had a feeling something was up when the normal group that walks past me didn't take the same route to class. I just assumed maybe they were stopping into another class. A student "stalled" me by asking me questions on my way to class, and when I got there, a few students were missing. I asked where one in particular was, and they all agreed that he had a referral and was sent down to the office. (believable with this student) So I thought nothing of it. For the first 10 minutes of class, students are supposed to read their Accelerated Reading books. Well, none of them had it, and they kept asking for graphing calculators, which were located in a closet to the back left of where I teach in the classroom. I convinced them that I would be reading them a book in class since no one brought a book. Then my teacher harped up and said "Well there are some sports magazines in that closet for them to read." So of course I thought I was home free for pranks, but when I opened the door, the student that "had a referral" jumped out and scared the living tar out of me. He claimed later in class that I had a "look of terror" when he jumped out of that closet. At least I know the kids like me enough to come up with a prank.
Apparently, they wanted to all leave the room before I got there, but of course the notion of that idea was not entertained and shut down immediately upon request by my cooperating teacher.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Mar. 28th
The Monday after Spring Break! Something I wasn't really all that excited for. I was really hoping to sleep in some more but back to the "job." I was excited to be back and teaching, but I could tell the students really wanted a longer break.
Pre-Algebra Classes
Something I was expecting was either an excessive amount of talking or complete zombies because students went to bed too late from being used to the late bed times from break. It was pleasantly in the middle. In my 1st period class, almost everyone was responsive and pleasant, and some were even cracking sarcastic jokes. What I did was review what we had talked about on the Wednesday and Thursday before break, which was solving multi-step equations. I gave them a worksheet to work on, and it seemed like most of the class was more focused on telling all their friends about where they went on break. I was a little reluctant to completely stop it because they haven't seen some of these people in over a week. I kept most of them on task and on topic. It is really frustrating to have the same students not getting it simply because they aren't paying attention. 5th period was more of the same. I had to give a small lecture about how when I call on someone I don't want everyone to answer. Hopefully they will get the hint that I want the person I ask to answer...to answer. 5th hour got further with the worksheet than 1st hour, just as I had suspected.
Algebra Classes
Today I was reviewing a bit and beginning the discussion on solving quadratic equations by completing the square. 4th hour didn't go all that well. They were having a lot of trouble with what I called the Speedy Review (with Speedy Gonzales). This review was on solving quadratic equations by factoring, which is what we had been working with the week before break. I thought they would have no trouble with this. Some students had completely forgotten how to factor a polynomial, let alone what factoring was. I also had a problem on solving by graphing a quadratic equation. They looked at that one like they had never seen it before. My plan was to spend 10 minutes, or so, on this and move on to solving by completing the square. Instead I had to try and rush in what I wanted to say in a shortened period of time. I mentioned a few good points but didn't give them a simple step-by-step approach to solving by completing the square. I could tell they left completely puzzled as how to or what completing the square was.
We (my cooperating teacher and I) corrected the mishap in 7th period and that class seemed to go smoothly. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that I lectured almost the entire class. I really don't like and don't think I can hold the attention span of the students for 50 minutes, especially when one class goes to lunch afterward, and the other class goes home for the day. Either way, I thought 7th period was much more prepared to show me what they could do tomorrow.
Thoughts on the day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, except that two students in my 7th period class were talking just about the entire time I was trying to explain to them step-by-step on how to complete this never before seen progress to solve quadratic equations. Before I could really keep them after and tell them what I had on my mind, my cooperating teacher said exactly what I was thinking. They understood and are hopefully behaved tomorrow.
My 5th period class tends to get out of control sometimes, and it's not because they don't have work to do, it's simply because of who they are. I also need to put down the hammer and give out some more referrals if I feel they are necessary.
Pre-Algebra Classes
Something I was expecting was either an excessive amount of talking or complete zombies because students went to bed too late from being used to the late bed times from break. It was pleasantly in the middle. In my 1st period class, almost everyone was responsive and pleasant, and some were even cracking sarcastic jokes. What I did was review what we had talked about on the Wednesday and Thursday before break, which was solving multi-step equations. I gave them a worksheet to work on, and it seemed like most of the class was more focused on telling all their friends about where they went on break. I was a little reluctant to completely stop it because they haven't seen some of these people in over a week. I kept most of them on task and on topic. It is really frustrating to have the same students not getting it simply because they aren't paying attention. 5th period was more of the same. I had to give a small lecture about how when I call on someone I don't want everyone to answer. Hopefully they will get the hint that I want the person I ask to answer...to answer. 5th hour got further with the worksheet than 1st hour, just as I had suspected.
Algebra Classes
Today I was reviewing a bit and beginning the discussion on solving quadratic equations by completing the square. 4th hour didn't go all that well. They were having a lot of trouble with what I called the Speedy Review (with Speedy Gonzales). This review was on solving quadratic equations by factoring, which is what we had been working with the week before break. I thought they would have no trouble with this. Some students had completely forgotten how to factor a polynomial, let alone what factoring was. I also had a problem on solving by graphing a quadratic equation. They looked at that one like they had never seen it before. My plan was to spend 10 minutes, or so, on this and move on to solving by completing the square. Instead I had to try and rush in what I wanted to say in a shortened period of time. I mentioned a few good points but didn't give them a simple step-by-step approach to solving by completing the square. I could tell they left completely puzzled as how to or what completing the square was.
We (my cooperating teacher and I) corrected the mishap in 7th period and that class seemed to go smoothly. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that I lectured almost the entire class. I really don't like and don't think I can hold the attention span of the students for 50 minutes, especially when one class goes to lunch afterward, and the other class goes home for the day. Either way, I thought 7th period was much more prepared to show me what they could do tomorrow.
Thoughts on the day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, except that two students in my 7th period class were talking just about the entire time I was trying to explain to them step-by-step on how to complete this never before seen progress to solve quadratic equations. Before I could really keep them after and tell them what I had on my mind, my cooperating teacher said exactly what I was thinking. They understood and are hopefully behaved tomorrow.
My 5th period class tends to get out of control sometimes, and it's not because they don't have work to do, it's simply because of who they are. I also need to put down the hammer and give out some more referrals if I feel they are necessary.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Mar. 16th
This day, I decided to give a pop-quiz to all of my classes
Pre-Algebra:
Their quiz was on the area of shapes and the volume of prisms. Honestly, they did pretty well, considering most points missed were on the lack of correct units. I had it set up to where they could use their reference sheets, and I had them name the objects. This would give them points if they didn't know how to find the actual volume. I thought this was a good idea because many of the students don't know which formula to use if they are trying to find the area of volume of an object. There wasn't a whole lot of time left in either class so I quickly reviewed what questions could have come up on surface area, and I gave them an extra day to finish their surface area activity I assigned the day before.
Algebra Classes:
Their quiz was on graphing and solving quadratic equations by graphing. Of the three problems that had students find the square roots of the problem, almost every student forgot to put both the positive and negative solutions of the square root. They took surprisingly long to finish this quiz though, especially since I allowed them to use their notes. There wasn't a whole lot of time, so I assigned 3 problems from a worksheet I made on Infinite Algebra where the coefficient is not equal to 1.
I was called a vacuum in my 5th period class because I "suck the fun out of the class." I had a slight little lecture with this class because I have to spend most of my time getting them to stop talking. Hopefully this attitude changes for them.
Goal:
I need to get better at classroom authority. I need to write referrals if I have to, and I have to try not to be their friends.
Pre-Algebra:
Their quiz was on the area of shapes and the volume of prisms. Honestly, they did pretty well, considering most points missed were on the lack of correct units. I had it set up to where they could use their reference sheets, and I had them name the objects. This would give them points if they didn't know how to find the actual volume. I thought this was a good idea because many of the students don't know which formula to use if they are trying to find the area of volume of an object. There wasn't a whole lot of time left in either class so I quickly reviewed what questions could have come up on surface area, and I gave them an extra day to finish their surface area activity I assigned the day before.
Algebra Classes:
Their quiz was on graphing and solving quadratic equations by graphing. Of the three problems that had students find the square roots of the problem, almost every student forgot to put both the positive and negative solutions of the square root. They took surprisingly long to finish this quiz though, especially since I allowed them to use their notes. There wasn't a whole lot of time, so I assigned 3 problems from a worksheet I made on Infinite Algebra where the coefficient is not equal to 1.
I was called a vacuum in my 5th period class because I "suck the fun out of the class." I had a slight little lecture with this class because I have to spend most of my time getting them to stop talking. Hopefully this attitude changes for them.
Goal:
I need to get better at classroom authority. I need to write referrals if I have to, and I have to try not to be their friends.
Mar. 15th
Pre- Algebra Classes
Today, in my pre-algebra classes I came up with an activity at about 7:50 in the morning, and decided to use it in class. I thought it would be a good thing to use for students to move around and get things going. I made this activity and expected it to take the class time, and allow them time to finish at home. In my 1st hour class, I briefly went over surface area formulas and volume formulas, and then gave them time in class to work. My teacher completely left the class. I really felt like it was completely my own class. He didn't come back until the class period ended. It was a pretty good feeling, and I thought that I was ready for something like this. I think one thing I need to work on with this class is either have them write notes or give them notes to take. The project, though, was a project that just had them measure and find the surface area of 5 objects in the classroom, or at home if they didn't finish in class.
5th Period was a hassle by myself. They were so concerned with where my cooperating teacher was that it took them forever to get under control. It took me longer to explain what was going on with the project than it did for my 1st period class. I put a little thing in spanish for the one mexican-american I have in my class. He thought it was funny and we had to explain what the phrase meant in english. I could tell they didn't like the project, but at least it was an attempt for a change of pace idea.
Algebra Classes
In my algebra classes, I decided that I cleared up any questions yesterday about what we had been doing, so I decided to move onto solving quadratic equations by factoring. With the notes, I went step-by-step, and the further I got into the notes, it seemed a lot of students forgot how to factor, and this is going to be a major problem if I can't correct this. I showed them the zero product property and how they can solve each polynomial by setting them to zero and finding the value of their variable that solved the equation. I gave them an 8 problem half-worksheet where a few of them had already been factored. All of these happened to be problems that had a lead coefficient of 1. The 7th period class erupted in excitement when I told them I was attending the after school dance as a chaperon. Little did I know it was going to be an interesting event for me.
After School Dance
Before the dance even started, I was asked by 4 girls to be their date to the dance. Of course, I turned them down, but in the nicest way I could think possible. Oh yeah, I was asked by two guys from my classes to be their dates. I also turned them down, but at least I know they were joking with me. The principal dedicated a Justin Beiber song to me. He came over to me after he did that and was crackin' up. Apparently he only picked me because my head was the only thing he saw, and yes, I know my head is extremely large and is above the crowd as it is. The choir teacher was the DJ and had pretty low quality equipment. They had some terrible sub-woofers and the overall sound quality was muffled. I could have borrowed my dad's equipment and gotten clearer results. It might have also been the fact that the volume was turned up extremely loud to cover the sound of the gym. This whole tid-bit feeds into my awesome dancing. I was talking with the band director when the choir teacher (DJ) calls out that he has to dance to this song. A huge circle of students surrounded us, and before I knew it, we were both dancing like idiots. It was fun, and then we realized we were being videotaped. (hooray!! Video is on facebook and youtube, haven't seen it, and I don't want to) So I wasn't the only teacher I knew being humiliated I made one of the teachers I had become friends with, so I made him jump in too. It was a lot of fun, I even pulled out the shopping cart dance, and the old pull-start lawn-mower.
Towards the second half of the dance, a few of the girls that I have in class were following me, but every time I turned around to see what they were doing they turned around as if they weren't doing anything. It was quite adorable, and the next thing I knew there was a group of about 15 girls following me. That was kind of odd, but I didn't make a big deal out of it. From the words of another teacher "Oh! Bless their little Hearts!!" That's about all anyone can say about that. Overall, I had a great time, and I got a free slice of pizza out of the whole thing, so I was happy about that.
Today, in my pre-algebra classes I came up with an activity at about 7:50 in the morning, and decided to use it in class. I thought it would be a good thing to use for students to move around and get things going. I made this activity and expected it to take the class time, and allow them time to finish at home. In my 1st hour class, I briefly went over surface area formulas and volume formulas, and then gave them time in class to work. My teacher completely left the class. I really felt like it was completely my own class. He didn't come back until the class period ended. It was a pretty good feeling, and I thought that I was ready for something like this. I think one thing I need to work on with this class is either have them write notes or give them notes to take. The project, though, was a project that just had them measure and find the surface area of 5 objects in the classroom, or at home if they didn't finish in class.
5th Period was a hassle by myself. They were so concerned with where my cooperating teacher was that it took them forever to get under control. It took me longer to explain what was going on with the project than it did for my 1st period class. I put a little thing in spanish for the one mexican-american I have in my class. He thought it was funny and we had to explain what the phrase meant in english. I could tell they didn't like the project, but at least it was an attempt for a change of pace idea.
Algebra Classes
In my algebra classes, I decided that I cleared up any questions yesterday about what we had been doing, so I decided to move onto solving quadratic equations by factoring. With the notes, I went step-by-step, and the further I got into the notes, it seemed a lot of students forgot how to factor, and this is going to be a major problem if I can't correct this. I showed them the zero product property and how they can solve each polynomial by setting them to zero and finding the value of their variable that solved the equation. I gave them an 8 problem half-worksheet where a few of them had already been factored. All of these happened to be problems that had a lead coefficient of 1. The 7th period class erupted in excitement when I told them I was attending the after school dance as a chaperon. Little did I know it was going to be an interesting event for me.
After School Dance
Before the dance even started, I was asked by 4 girls to be their date to the dance. Of course, I turned them down, but in the nicest way I could think possible. Oh yeah, I was asked by two guys from my classes to be their dates. I also turned them down, but at least I know they were joking with me. The principal dedicated a Justin Beiber song to me. He came over to me after he did that and was crackin' up. Apparently he only picked me because my head was the only thing he saw, and yes, I know my head is extremely large and is above the crowd as it is. The choir teacher was the DJ and had pretty low quality equipment. They had some terrible sub-woofers and the overall sound quality was muffled. I could have borrowed my dad's equipment and gotten clearer results. It might have also been the fact that the volume was turned up extremely loud to cover the sound of the gym. This whole tid-bit feeds into my awesome dancing. I was talking with the band director when the choir teacher (DJ) calls out that he has to dance to this song. A huge circle of students surrounded us, and before I knew it, we were both dancing like idiots. It was fun, and then we realized we were being videotaped. (hooray!! Video is on facebook and youtube, haven't seen it, and I don't want to) So I wasn't the only teacher I knew being humiliated I made one of the teachers I had become friends with, so I made him jump in too. It was a lot of fun, I even pulled out the shopping cart dance, and the old pull-start lawn-mower.
Towards the second half of the dance, a few of the girls that I have in class were following me, but every time I turned around to see what they were doing they turned around as if they weren't doing anything. It was quite adorable, and the next thing I knew there was a group of about 15 girls following me. That was kind of odd, but I didn't make a big deal out of it. From the words of another teacher "Oh! Bless their little Hearts!!" That's about all anyone can say about that. Overall, I had a great time, and I got a free slice of pizza out of the whole thing, so I was happy about that.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Mar. 14th
Monday Monday...blah dahhh blah dah dah dah....so good toooo me.
It's another Monday, and another day I expect my students to be pretty laid back and non-responsive, but to my avail, they were extremely talkative and responsive to what I was teaching.
Pre-Algebra
I was ending my time with volume and hoping to get a touch into surface area. The volume I spent my time on was volume of pyramids and cones. Hopefully, I got it across to the students that the volume of a pyramid is the same formula as the volume of a prism, except that a pyramid is 1/3 the volume of the prism. It seemed like they understood where this was coming from. I gave them in class. I was also told during 5th period that I am like a vacuum because I suck all the fun out of the class. If you know my 5th period class, you can understand why I might "take the fun out of it." I have to spend twice as much time as any other class trying to get them to quiet down and pay attention for a few minutes. It is nearly impossible to get them on task right away. It seems that whenever I transition at all, they just immediately get to talking and stop listening to me right away. I have to wait and listen, and I think I am running out of patience with this class. I have given them many opportunities to work in groups or do activities, and without fail, they barely work. Then they have no idea what to do after I explain what was going on because they weren't listening while I explained it. Many students in both of these classes have a lot of missing assignments, resulting in very low and disappointing percentage grades.
Algebra Classes
Like I mentioned on Friday, my teacher and I discussed giving the class a problem that was similar to what we had been working on for the last few days. This did not go nearly as well as I had hoped. I was hoping just to touch on this for about 10 minutes and move on to solving quadratics by factoring, but of course this didn't happen. In fact, both classes spent almost all of the class time on these two bell work problems, It was very frustrating and I was ready to move on so I can be done with my LAMP unit, because the 10 days that are supposed to be for a lamp project are really more like 15 or 20 days. OH well I guess that I will learn from this as I move on to become a full fledged paid employee of the state of whatever state I end up living in.
It's another Monday, and another day I expect my students to be pretty laid back and non-responsive, but to my avail, they were extremely talkative and responsive to what I was teaching.
Pre-Algebra
I was ending my time with volume and hoping to get a touch into surface area. The volume I spent my time on was volume of pyramids and cones. Hopefully, I got it across to the students that the volume of a pyramid is the same formula as the volume of a prism, except that a pyramid is 1/3 the volume of the prism. It seemed like they understood where this was coming from. I gave them in class. I was also told during 5th period that I am like a vacuum because I suck all the fun out of the class. If you know my 5th period class, you can understand why I might "take the fun out of it." I have to spend twice as much time as any other class trying to get them to quiet down and pay attention for a few minutes. It is nearly impossible to get them on task right away. It seems that whenever I transition at all, they just immediately get to talking and stop listening to me right away. I have to wait and listen, and I think I am running out of patience with this class. I have given them many opportunities to work in groups or do activities, and without fail, they barely work. Then they have no idea what to do after I explain what was going on because they weren't listening while I explained it. Many students in both of these classes have a lot of missing assignments, resulting in very low and disappointing percentage grades.
Algebra Classes
Like I mentioned on Friday, my teacher and I discussed giving the class a problem that was similar to what we had been working on for the last few days. This did not go nearly as well as I had hoped. I was hoping just to touch on this for about 10 minutes and move on to solving quadratics by factoring, but of course this didn't happen. In fact, both classes spent almost all of the class time on these two bell work problems, It was very frustrating and I was ready to move on so I can be done with my LAMP unit, because the 10 days that are supposed to be for a lamp project are really more like 15 or 20 days. OH well I guess that I will learn from this as I move on to become a full fledged paid employee of the state of whatever state I end up living in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)