Post date: Apr 1, 2017 6:50:52 PM
Math 7H Period 1
SOLs Covered: 8.12 Probability
Math Unit: #22 Probability
Daily Agenda: March 27-31, 2017
CCPS Student Digital Resource: Probability
Upcoming Assessments: Probability Quiz (Tues. 4/4); Units 21-22 Test (Thurs. 4/6-Fri. 4/7); Functions Test (Fri. 4/21)
MSM2 Period 3 & 4
SOLs Covered: 7.12 & 8.14 Relations & Functions; 8.16 Graphing Linear Functions; 7.2 Sequences
Math Unit: #21 Relations & Functions; #22 Patterns & Sequences
Daily Agenda: March 27-31, 2017
CCPS Student Digital Resource: Relations & Functions; Graphing Linear Functions; Sequences
Upcoming Assessments: Sequences Quiz (Wed. 4/5); Probability Quiz (Wed. 4/19)
After School Help Session: Tues. 4/18, 3-4PM
Howdy folks! We've now officially wrapped up the third term and there's just two and a half months before the year's over! I'm super proud of the kids who pushed themselves to pull their grades up before the end of term, but there were quite a few who waited until the last minute to do so, both in my math class and I noticed a few others based on the number of kids asking to go to other teachers yesterday for late assignments. Please help me encouraging the kids to not do the same thing this term, especially as we have not yet been told what the collection date for Chromebooks will be and that could severely impact students ability to complete late/missing assignments. It might seem a long way off at the moment, but once students start letting work pile up, they often become overwhelmed with the thought of making it all up and find themselves continuing to put it aside to avoid the stress.
Before getting into the details for each class, I want to update folks on how IXL will be graded differently during the next term. While this past week's work will be going onto the final report card, it is the last time the assignment will be recorded as a weekly grade. From this point forward, it will be given as a monthly grade as I've found that the kids overall have "off and on" weeks when it comes to their work on the site. I know from my own family how busy kids can be at any given point (sports, school events, family events, etc.) and after looking at overall monthly use versus week-to-week use, most kids were able to complete the overall required time (grades for the third term were adjusted to reflect this), so I believe monthly use will work out better for the kids. They'll be required to complete 1.5 hours during the month of April and 2 hours during the month of May. I'll have to wait on determining the amount of time required for June based on when Chromebooks will be collected. Even with these requirements, I highly encourage kids to work beyond the required hours, especially this month as IXL is holding a contest where the top three classes in each age group (from all their subscribed users) can win a pizza party! While the kids are excited for that possibility, I love that they're getting loads of practice for SOL related topics and I'm seeing their confidence in their math abilities increase. Help me with encouraging the kids to not only meet their requirements but to move well past them this term. Now onto this week's math happenings.
The honors class started the week with their data analysis quiz on Monday before having a "wrap up" day on Tuesday to take care of any missing/incomplete work and/or take advantage of the StudyIsland extra credit opportunity. We started working on my favorite topic of the year, probability, on Wednesday. The first part of the work was more review of the basics they've covered in the past: probability of single events, theoretical vs. experimental, total possible outcomes, basic (fundamental) counting principle. We started on the more complicate concepts of compound events with independent vs. dependent events on Friday. It's not a super tricky concept and some of the kids may have covered it as well last year, it can definitely be tricky depending on how it's presented in word problems (it's always the word problems, right?!). We'll be wrapping our work on this up on Monday before a quiz and review in the middle of the week and a test at the end of the week before spring break.
The MSM2 classes continued working on relations and functions. The middle school requirements are pretty basic and are pretty heavy on the vocabulary, but the kids were also introduced to the Algebra I level topics of slope and intercept. While they are not tested on the high school level topics, the kids typically take to it fairly well and they can make testing much easier as it's easy to identify positive/negative slope and the y-intercept at a glance from graphs and equations. The method I show them for finding slope (an informal version of the slope formula) also ties into the unit that follows. We took the quiz on Wednesday, which was done a bit differently than others. As I've told the kids, there is sadly a load of required testing during the 4th term, so for our "in-house" quizzes (meaning those made by our EDMS team of 7th grade math teachers) will be completed together in all classes, including the honors. This serves several purposes as it helps minimize some of the stress on students that assessments can cause, especially considering the increased number this term, and it allows me to review test-taking strategies with students which they can then immediately implement on our in-house tests and later on the county and state assessments. As has been the trend, there were mixed results on the test, but those who paid close attention and took detailed notes during the quiz saw their diligence pay off during the test. Despite me telling the kids multiple times that they should be taking notes and paying closer attention (as opposed to just recording the final answer), quite a few didn't and there were even several who didn't get a 100% on the quiz for which they were given all the answers. Please help me with encouraging the kids to fully take advantage this extra help by paying closer attention and writing everything down.
Well, I'm going to start wrapping things up here. Before signing off, I wanted to give a heads up that there will not be a tutoring session this week as I sadly will not have time for it. I do plan to start right back up with tutoring again after break as noted at the beginning of this post. As always, feel free to email if you have any questions. Hope you all have a great weekend!