Ch 7 Exam Results

Well disappointing to say the least on the results from the Chapter 7 exam.  The multiple choice questions were terrible, and that really concerns me since the final exam is all multiple choice.  

We just had a rep from the Princeton Review about strategies to perform better on the Math portion of ACT, and her ideas can help out in my Geo classes. I think I will start doing multiple choice questions in class to help teach these strategies.  My colleague, Becky, had a great idea to use questions from previous exams so that it becomes a review as well as practice with multiple choice strategies.  

Chapter 10 is next and I am concerned about it.  We venture into lateral and surface area of polyhedra, which uses all these area calculations we just failed miserably on.  I am trying something new though, making them "un-fold" the solid into nets so they can see the polygons that make up the solid.  After doing a few, we saw how there is a perimeter calculation inside the lateral area calculation, and so I generalized these into formulas that our textbook uses.  So far, two good days of class, but we shall see.

Thanks for listening, more later.

Meeks 

New Thoughts & Chapter 7 Exam

Last week I attended a meeting on the new Common Core standards and implementation into our school district.  Lots of work to do, but exciting time I believe for mathematics in general.

Chapter 7 exam coming up next Monday and Tuesday.  Hard stuff, area of shapes, special right triangles, arcs of circles, areas of sectors and segments.  I am not sure how my students will do.  Each year I go through this, is seems to get harder and harder to teach.  Now the new CC standards are pushing a lot of this material into the 7th and 8th grades.  I am glad, but wonder how hard it may be there.

I do think that students caught on to special triangles this year, better than years past.  Maybe I finally did a decent job of teaching that.  The last two days have been awesome review, students really helping each other and asking great questions.  Make me nervous for exam day, but maybe they will rise to the occasion.

Ch 5 Results

So the chapter 5 exam has gone now, and overall scores were not spectacular.  My 1B class happened to have a class average a little higher than my 2A class, so they won the doughnuts and are excited to win, but disappointed in the class average not reaching the goal we set out to achieve.

Something new has occurred with these last 2 exams.  It seems multiple choice questions are driving my students crazy at the moment.  Luckily, the next unit has parts of our chapters 6 & 7 mixed around, and so the plan is to have 3 quizzes over this time frame and I am going to put multiple choice problems on it for practice.

This unit should be interesting as the overall topic is about finding the area of shapes.  Usually this is a chapter where students feel like they can do it, but then discover the problems are harder than they think.  We are off to a good start though, the first homework assignment was worked on hard be both groups.  We shall see!

Its been a little while since I posted anything, but have some good news to share.

After the Chapter 3 exam, average scores dropped significantly from the first exam.  You might say how is that good news to share?  Well, after a great discussion with my students, we all discovered that homework outside of the classroom was not done as much, hardly at all, compared with the homework done during Chapter 1.  The discussions when working on problems was still great, utilizing the communicate and critique SMP daily.

Students made a challenge between my two classes to see which class would have the better exam average on the next chapter exam.  So far I have seen homework much more improved during chapter 5.  It's comparable to the way they worked during chapter 1.  I am excited to see scores for this one, especially since we now have a class challenge and they seem very motivated to beat my other class!

I went to the computer lab to work on our Section 5.3, which is on points of concurrency:  circumcenter, incenter, centroid and orthocenter.  This is hard material, but I found that working on the computer really helped them identify the different points discussed.  Then we came back, and all I did was ask them to summarize what they learned, and I was very impressed that they could determine what point of concurrency went with what construction from the triangles.  

It was a great activity, but some students wondered why?  So I made them draw their kitchen and told them we were going to remodel it so that the new island sink would be the same distance from the oven, the refrigerator and the dishwasher.  They now are looking at the different points of concurrency and trying to figure out which one will allow the best remodel to happen.  I look forward to their responses.

Training Day

Had training yesterday with my math colleagues about the new core standards and the standards for mathematical practice. Went really well for the most part. We had great conversations about things.

One topic really sat with me that our district leader told us about. The idea of having a "fixed mindset" versus a "growth mindset". Statements like "I was never good at Algebra" versus "I am not confident in Algebra but I am seeing improvement.". I would like more info about this as it intrigues me.

Students continue to have good conversations. Right now however, I am not seeing a lot of homework done outside the classroom. They seem to be cheating the system by just working on the 4 graded ones done in class. However, I ask if that is a bad thing or not because their willingness to share is still great.

So exam scores were outstanding!  Some of the highest class averages I have had in years.  So I formed new groups just to keep students talking to new students, and had some quieter classes the past 2 days.  Once they get started talking in new groups, I think it will go fine.

Have you heard of the Kuta software?  Check it out at kutasoftware.com there are free worksheets to use in your class that are sorted by topic.  We got lucky here at Cherokee Trail, our math department purchased a three year site license and today learned how to operate the software.

I made a worksheet of 14 problems related to last class and today's lesson in about 10 minutes, including copy time.  These worksheet just aided to group discussions and allowed me to roam around the room and help students with questions.  I highly recommend utilizing this in your classes.

A new question surfaced for me, how can I continue to get meaningful discussion on a day to day basis?  My 2A class is awesome at it right now, they have figured out that participating helps their learning, but also makes the class go by quicker.  My 1B class is still waking up I think, but have made great strides in discussions.  I hope it continues!

Welcome all Geo/Trig teachers!!!

I decided to start a blog to help me share my experiences in my classroom trying to incorporate the new 8 Standards of Mathematical Practices.  I hope you enjoy my ramblings as I progress throughout this school year.  I wanted a place to learn, share, vent and just reflect on my changes in my classroom.

My first post deals with how my classroom has been transformed into a great group learning structure that is new to me.  The students are arranged in groups of 4, and have the ability to share how they solve problems we look at in class, or how they solved homework problems.  So far the conversations are going fantastic, and I could not be more pleased with how things are going.  Yesterday, I even had a student say how much she loved coming to math class because it is so much fun to share and learn from each other.  I guess my biggest question is, will this transform their understanding into better test scores?  I guess I will see soon, as our first exam is this Thursday and Friday.

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment as I always need help with new ideas and things to try.  Happy teaching!!!