Feb. 28th

Today was an odd day, being the only school in the Muncie area not on a two hour delay, due to the massive flooding in parts that included some bus routes, and availability for students to get to school.
The great thing about it was that it was the last day for countdown to ISTEP, which I was very thankful for because it meant an end to essentially 30 minute class periods where I would actually teach new material. Well, I thought it would be an end, because with ISTEP, I will only have 1/2 hour classes, not including my lunch hour (4th hour). It is really frustrating to have to plan for classes and keep them on the same pace when one out of your two Algebra I honors classes has twice as much time as the other class. Honestly, it's a little hard to be consistent.

Pre- Algebra Classes

Today I was planning on teaching about areas of Trapezoids and other oddly shaped quadrilaterals, and then my cooperating teacher had me look at a problem that was directly related to a problem from the previous year's ISTEP test. This problem was an area problem with 5 parts, finding both the perimeter and area of a floor, finding the amount of 2 x 2 tiles needed to cover the floor, how much money it would cost, and how much money it would cost to have members (of a sports fitness center) pay to cover the cost. So, a pretty immense and complicated problem. My first hour class took the entire hour, so going into my 5th hour Pre-Algebra class, I assumed it would take the whole class. Since I assumed this I didn't plan a whole lot of extra things for students to do. Because of this, some students were done as soon as 20 minutes before the end of class. I was a bit surprised, but didn't really have much for them to do. Since it was such an important part of ISTEP, I thought it would be pertinent to show students the problem that could save them on the ISTEP test. I know for next time to always have something planned for students to get finished.

Algebra Classes


I also gave these classes the countdown to ISTEP problem as well, assuming they would be able to complete it in minutes. I was right for the most part, though it did take a little longer than expected. It took these classes 10 minutes for my 4th period and around 20 minutes for my 7th period class. I was baffled by the fact my 7th hour took so much longer. Due to the fact, my 7th hour class had less "homework" to do than my 4th hour. I place homework in quotes because during the week of ISTEP I am not allowed to give physical homework. I can assign things for students to do in class but I can not assign actual take home work. What these classes did was factoring polynomials that were cubic polynomials with 4 terms. It seemed like they understood the basic concept of factoring before. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time in either class to thoroughly go over the material. Oh well, I think it is better for students to discover patterns and different techniques on their own.