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.