Post date: Oct 22, 2016 8:29:35 PM
Math 7H Period 1
SOLs Covered: 8.1b Comparing & Ordering Rational Numbers; 8.15c Properties of Real Numbers
Math Unit: #07 Comparing & Ordering Rational Numbers; #08 Properties of Real Numbers
CCPS Student Digital Resource: Comparing & Ordering Rational Numbers; Properties of Real Numbers
Upcoming Assessments: Properties Retake Quiz (Mon. 10/24); Units 5-8 Test (Wed. 10/26-Thurs. 10/27); Term 1 Benchmark (Tues. 11/1-Wed. 11/2)
MSM2 Period 3 & 4
SOLs Covered: 7.13b Evaluating Expressions
Math Unit: #05 Evaluating Expressions
CCPS Student Digital Resource: Evaluating Expressions
Upcoming Assessments: Sci.Note & C&O Quiz (Mon. 10/24); Units 4-7 Test (Wed. 10/26-Thurs. 10/27); Term 1 Benchmark (Tues. 11/1-Wed. 11/2)
After School Help Session: Tues. 10/25, 3-4PM
As the kids can tell you, I've not been feeling all that great this week, so I want to start by thanking the kids for being so cooperative and helpful this week, volunteering to pass out papers, helping to clean up their desk areas and straighten supplies. It has been very much appreciated.
Before getting into the week's happenings, I'd like everyone to make note of the addition of the "After School Help Session" above. It's taken me a bit more time than usual to get settled into the school year between family and making sure the school's site is fully updated, but I've now got enough extra time each week to set up regular help sessions after school. These sessions will be mostly for extra math help/tutoring, but it can also be used for students to make up work, retake assessments using points, or to get help with their Chromebooks. The sessions will generally be on Tuesdays and usually last until 4PM, but they will be noted in each weekly class summary as well as posted to the "Extra Help" calendar. Students who want to stay after for help will need to either get their parents/guardians to write a note or send an email with their permission for the student to stay and students need to be picked up no later than 4:15PM.
The honors students worked all week on the properties of real numbers. The kids seemed to be doing well throughout the week, but the results of the quiz were not as good as they normally are. We reviewed the results together and went over questions on Friday once they finished and the kids now seem to have a better grasp of where they went wrong. While the had the basics of properties under control, they struggled with the little "SOL tricks" of some of the problems. Since the struggle was definitely atypical for them and I know I wasn't able to give them 100% of myself this week, I've set up a retake quiz for Monday for all those who did struggle previously.
The MSM2 students started the week with powers of ten and scientific notation. There was some confusion between how the "big and small" numbers worked and what the positive and negative exponents on the powers of ten worked, so after some quick brainstorming, my geeky side came up with the idea of calling the "big" numbers (numbers greater than 10, generally used for numbers in the thousands or higher) "Hulk" numbers and the "small" numbers (numbers between 0 and 1, long decimals) "Ant-Man" numbers (note to my fellow nerds and/or Marvel fans, just ignore the happenings of CA:CW). Even the kids who aren't huge Marvel fans seemed to find the comparison helpful. There is still some struggle with a few kids thinking the exponent represents the number of zeros; for them, please just keep reminding them that it's the changes in place values. From scientific notation, we moved onto comparing and ordering various forms of rational numbers, scientific notation along with fractions, decimals, and percents. Many kids (and plenty of adults) struggle with work that involve fractions, so the kids have notes for reviewing fractions (along with decimals and percents) covering all the basics they've learned in the past.
Despite continued efforts to make sure the kids understand the logistics of work in my class, I was still finding that too many were confused on how the weekly assignments aligned to their Edmodo Work Checks, which is where the regular unit grades (as opposed to the unit quiz grades) are coming from each week. To help with this, I walked through the Unit 6 Work Check with both MSM2 classes. I started by projecting the Edmodo WC on the board and switched to the document camera to show where in their notebook work they would be able to find the answers, completing the entire thing with them. Most of the kids did great this time, but for those who didn't, I'd like to ask parents/guardians to talk with those kids about buckling down and working on paying attention in class. While they were scheduled to take their quiz on Friday, this extra time spent going over the Edmodo WC process has pushed it to Monday.
Well, I'm going to wrap things up here. I hope everyone has a great weekend! Kids, don't forget to keep working on that Study Island extra credit opportunity!