Week 4 Just About Halfway Through the First Quarter

Wow was I busy last week. I usually had time to stop at home and grab some dinner, but 30 minutes later I was out the door again and not home until at least 8:30. The weekend didn't bring any respite, we drove to Lisle for a marching band competition and picked up a dryer along the way. I was up until 11:30 catching up on laundry, then up again at 5:30 to clean the basement and backyard for a some up coming construction. I did finish by 3 so I could grade papers and go shopping which is good, at least I won't go hungry next week.

The problem with such a busy week it that I also had to spend hours on Sunday grading papers. I would rather return the work the day after with notes so we can integrate the feedback into lessons. Come Monday morning most of my students, and myself, will have forgotten what we did on individual days so looking at old papers is hard. You have to remember the assignment and think back to what you were thinking at the time and then try to make sense of the feedback. It really isn't an ideal situation.

I'm contemplating adjusting my schedule so we can review the work together. Or maybe just those students who haven't gotten the hang of it yet. So I just took the time to review my lesson plan for the week and it's like I was planning for this on Friday. Most of my students have the area idea down, not just for rectangles, but triangles, and circles as well. We started some fractional areas last week, it is a great way to explore multiplication of fractions and the distributive property. I think I will let some of my students work independently on those projects while I reteach students who still struggle with the basics. I had even made a list, just seconds before starting to write this blog post, of students who need one on one help so I'm ready to go. Just have to remember to make two different activities for tomorrow.

I think one more whole class exploration of fractional areas especially multiplying two fractions and we will be ready to go. In the middle of the week I am going to introduce a thought process graphical organizer. Then end the week with a summative quiz on finding area/multiplication. My only real worry is that I gave out a homework assignment with area problems, but it didn't use graph paper and quite a few of my students were completely confused. I'll have to make sure to review that homework before Friday.

I'm a bit proud of the problem solving worksheet, I'd love to have a bit of feedback on it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making Myself a Better Teacher Episode 1

My first podcast with a friend Joy Kirr. The audio file  Podcast page Joy is a local teacher whom I was following on Twitter. I don't think I even realized she was local when I first started following her. One day she tweeted out an activity she was hosting at the school she worked at the time. I was like, hey that's right down the road I should go. And so I did, with my wife and kids in tow we went. I just really love making these connections.  We haven't talked much in the last few years but when I decided to start this podcast series and I was trying to think of teachers that I would like to chat with I remembered Joy and thought, "Yes, she is a teacher I would like to learn from." So here we are with my first episode.  As I reviewed to the chat I thought I would mark down some of the parts I thought were good. Around minute 3 we talk about low and high points in education and she really embodies a growth mindset. Keep those keepsakes,
Read more

Writing my lessons with OpenAI

Image
 Good unit plans require backward planning so let's create an assessment. Write a performance task for the mathematical standard Solve linear equations in one variable. Performance Task: Linear Equation Word Problems You have been hired by a furniture company to help them price their products. The company has determined that the price of a table is directly proportional to its length. They have found that a 6 foot long table costs $300. You are given the following information: The cost of a table is directly proportional to its length A 6 foot long table costs $300 Using this information, you need to answer the following questions: Write an equation that represents the relationship between the length of a table (in feet) and its cost (in dollars). A customer wants to purchase a 9 foot long table. How much will it cost? The company wants to sell a 4 foot long table for $200. Is this possible, and if so, what will the cost be? To complete this task, you will need to use your knowledg
Read more

Quality Education: Technology

I used to blog for my old company, but they took the blog down. I am not actually allowed to own the writings I put up on that blog, but as I reference them on occasion in my writing I am putting those articles up in my archives here for reference sake. I'll put the tag GS on those articles noting that they were originally published on the http://schoolfinder.globalscholar.com/blog/ Quality Education: Technology Way back during my teacher education I wrote a master’s thesis on technology. The basic conclusion was that technology was a tool, not a fix for education. Of course that should be obvious, yet even today we have schools, districts, foundations, and such pouring millions into putting technology into schools without enough consideration for who is going to use it. I’m not against technology, obviously, but there has to be a lot of thought and consideration put into the teachers who use that technology. Teachers I know run the gamut from completely technologically illiterate
Read more