3/8/07

There are so many things to think about when beginning Moving Straight Ahead. The first thing that pops into my mind is how to make sure that all of my students are successful. When I student-taught, we grouped students by readiness level for this book. In my first year of teaching, we did basically the same thing, but we had a smaller team. That limited the number of groups we could create.

This year raises the same question. We have given the students a pre-test for this book (which is the same as the post-test that they will take at the end of the book). The pre-test is important to give (especially for data reasons), but it didn't actually give us a lot of information. I don't know whether anyone on our team passed the test. There were some students who were able to solve the equations, but they didn't solve them using the symbolic method. Is that necessary for their achievement with this book?

It appears that this year we are just going to leave students in the classes they are already a part of. This means that we have huge discrepancies in math skills and work ethic. Moving Straight Ahead is a book that brings out unexpected skills/struggles in students. I've had students who had a very hard time with other math books, but this book was a great book for them. Our school has a high number of English Language Learners. This book may be easier for them because there is less writing involved in each problem. However, I've also had students who excelled in every math book but this one. They had major trouble with this book because they just couldn't wrap their minds around the concepts that are presented.

3/1/07

Investigation 4 of Comparing and Scaling is a very random compilation of problems, with no particular rhyme or reason. At least one of these problems could be completely cut out with no loss of information and learning for my students. Using proportions is not imperative for solving these problems. In fact, I myself would not use proportions to solve some of these problems, so how can I encourage my students to do so?

We fell a little behind schedule due to the pacing of this book and the fact that we unexpectedly had some days off from school. I felt that it was necessary to make some cuts in Investigation 4, and ended up eliminating problem 4.2 from our class investigations. My reasoning was that 4.2 is not an investigation that leads to new knowledge; it is more just a practice exercise of the skills that have already been learned. I know that students need to practice these skills, but there has to be a better, less random way of going about it.

2/22/07

Okay. So I'm a little over halfway through Comparing and Scaling, and I know that some of my students aren't being challenged at all by this book. I've been trying to find a way to adequately challenge all of my students. I think it's necessary to have all students learn and practice the five different comparison types. At this point in the book, some students can move on very successfully on their own, and would be bored if they're not challenged to reach their full potential.

Yesterday I spoke with two of the students in my math class to try an extension idea with them. These two students are going to work together to get through Investigation 3 by themselves. I stressed to them that it's really important for them to ask each other or me questions, if they have them. I have chosen ACE extension problems to give them for homework each night, instead of what the rest of my class will be doing for homework. I don't think that they would be challenged enough by the regular homework assignments.

Four of my students have reached the end of Investigation 3, and they're working on a way to show me that they have reached the goals that I have set for them.

There are three major "learnings" that I want from them, and they can show me them in any way they choose. (I've suggested PowerPoint presentations, portfolios, and written explanations.) They should be able to demonstrate:

1. Using unit rates effectively and being able to explain their thought process.
2. Using unit rates as a method for comparing two or more things.
3. Relating unit rates to ratios and linear relationships.