The newsletter has a lot of important information in it that will be a good resource all year long!
Quarter 3:
It is so nice to see some students in person! Great job to all those who earned high school credit last semester. Quarter three is more rigorous because we are applying our learned quadratic relationships to real-life problems, solving quadratics in various ways and more in depth geometry relating to triangles.
Now that we are hybrid, there are asynchronous class work assignments. These are posted under the 'class work' tab and titled asynchronous. There is a strong correlation to participation and success. We have developed a new stream-lined communication tool so that there is increased communication in a more timely manner. Our IT department helped to develop the new system so (for now) the emails look like they are coming from someone else in the district (Greg Eifler). I am sending out these emails when I note students are not participating in class work.
I would still recommend reviewing Google Classroom weekly to see work and grades for assessments and homework. The students have a Google Calendar that shows all their assignments. They also have a to-do list they can reference. Most middle school students still need support with materials, following schedules and overall responsibility. Thanks for your help from home!
End of Quarter 2:
We made it through the main standards in chapters 2-4 this quarter! Students are expected to do the work assigned, participate in class orally or in chat, and in breakout rooms cooperatively with peers orally. Please check in with your child and ask them to show you what they did in class... anytime! They should have authentic work in their notebook or on a digital platform each and every day.
Google Classroom is still our main hub of all work, assignments and announcements. You can look at your child's work and grades there. Remember the conversion of numbers to proficiency:
4=A (high school grade of A)
3=P (high school grade of B)
2=PP (high school grade of C or D depending on if grades are PP/P or PP/U respectively)
1=U (high school grade of F)
We are now updated an in-progress grade every couple weeks.
Our final exam for high school credit is next week and will determine if your child will be ready for the next level class and earn a .5 high school credit. They are allowed to use their notes and we have done chapter summaries, that I suggest they use. There has been weekly tutoring sessions available. Our homework has often included review problems for continual practice of former standards. They must earn at least 70% to earn the high school credit for the semester. The exam is comprehensive of all the standards this semester and students must show their work to earn full credit.
Next semester students will apply the standards they've learned to develop further understanding in algebra and geometry (statistics or other interesting discrete math topics if we have time).
Here is a link to our Middle School newletter with all the general information.
Here is a recording of our Back to School NIght
Welcome to a new school year that is already full of twists and turns! I'm excited to use all of the technology that I've learned this summer in order to help you learn algebra, geometry and statistics! We will work with a variety of platforms such as white boards, graph paper, digital graph paper, videos, electronic textbook, etc... I hope we will be back in person for geometry when we need to use rulers and protractors often.
I would like to get to know you a little bit to start off the year. Please fill out this Google Form. Here are my answers.
UPDATE: This year you can earn high school credit for Core 2. You'll have to pass the semester exams to earn the credit. We'll have plenty of practice, discussions, smaller assessments and opportunities for feedback throughout each semester.
I expect your full work habits to the best of your (and your family's) ability including being prompt, respectful, and a participating member of our community. You can do this by having your materials, doing your best, asking questions, and turning in work on time. This year we are working on a block schedule so I'll see you twice a week. We'll try to work on the more complex problems and discussions during this time and I'll ask you to do some application/practice/foreshadowing problems as homework (graded for completion). You can also look for multiple types of assessments and feedback while we are remote learning such as reflections, portfolios of work, and video explanations instead of only exit questions, quizzes and tests. We'll go over the different expectations and rubrics as they come up. Here's the basic scale we use in Google Classroom. I like to give more information so be sure to read feedback and rubrics and look for values in between these whole numbers.
4=A
3=P
2=PP
1=U
Please see our technology page to get more details about all the tech we intend to use. It will help us to explain our thinking when we use the right tool. Also, the work will be more exciting!! I'll teach you more about the technology in the first weeks of school and as they are used the first time. Google Classroom is our homebase. I'll schedule assignments there, share resources, ask questions, schedule Google Meets, etc... There is also an automatic Google Calendar assigned to it to track your assignments. I've attached a Core 1 Calendar in the Daily Lessons page of this Site.
Let's have fun and learn this math remotely!
Mrs. Hayson
eehayson@aurorak12.org