5/17/07

The debate is still on as to whether I can modify my students' test by writing in "slope" by "m" and "coefficient" by "b." My perspective is that, if my students understand what these two things are and can find them using tables, graphs, and equations, they should not be punished for not having had as much exposure to the letter form. It's my fault that they haven't seen "m" and "b" more often. If they can truly understand what "slope" and "y-intercept" are, and know how to find them in multiple settings, then I am not so worried about whether they know "m" and "b." We modify assignments, tests, and quizzes for so many kids, and this is just another type of modification.

When considering this, I debated whether making the changes would affect the test results drastically enough that they wouldn't be comparable to the results for other students. I also spoke to an eighth-grade math teacher to hear that perspective. She pretty much agreed with me, and saw this book as a stepping-stone to her class next year.

This week we worked on Problem 4.3 for two days. For some reason, this is a difficult problem for students. Both Yvette and I modified this problem for our classes. I wrote a little about this before, but I ended up doing only the first set of equations. These equations all had slopes of 3 or -3. I was happy to see that my students were able to graph the slope of the line relatively easily. Surprisingly, though, they had trouble graphing the y-intercept. Sometimes I feel like they are thinking so hard about one thing that they completely forget about the other things they're supposed to be thinking about. We stopped their exploration and revisited this, and then they were fine. We also did the first set of equations for Part B: Y = 2x and y = -1/2x. I wanted students to see what would happen when they graphed two lines that had completely opposite slopes. Sometimes they had trouble with the graphing, because they didn't really see it as rise and run. I feel confident in their ability to graph equations when given just the coefficient.

Today, as part of our review for the test, the students did a coefficient and y-intercept review worksheet. They had to identify the two for equations, graphs, and tables. Overall, they did awesome! Yvette and I team-taught this lesson together, and I was SO excited that my students were keeping up with our higher-level students (whom Yvette has been teaching). It was also kind of weird, because my students had the most trouble with finding the coefficient when looking at a table, and that was the first thing that we learned in this book. It took some reminders before they remembered that all they had to do was look at the rate of change in both the x and y parts of the table.

We also decided that, for this book, we will continue to introduce vocabulary in class and have students take notes on them, as we normally do. But instead of dividing the vocabulary up among students and having them write the words on sentence strips with a definition and a picture, they're going to make their own little Moving Straight Ahead dictionary. We choose 16 words from the book, and students are making a mini-book with word, definition, and some type of drawing. Some of the 16 words we choose are: compare, point of intersection, rise/run, slope, x-axis, y-axis, y-intercept, and coordinate pair.

I love how some of the students look at these words like they are completely foreign and have no idea what they could possibly mean, while others immediately get right to work and are working well within minutes.

Tomorrow we will continue our review. I have created a review packet that outlines practice with the major skills on the test. Students will need to analyze tables to find the slope and y-intercept, then match the tables to the correct equations. They'll also need to look at graphs, find the slope, and write an equation for the line shown on the graph. And they'll have to find the better buy between two pizza companies. This test should not be too difficult for students to complete.

As I was re-reading my blog for this week, I realized how boring they all sound. I wish that I could express how truly amazing it has been to watch kids who are normally at the bottom of their math class become very capable students who are beginning to assume leadership positions. Moving Straight Ahead has some great opportunities for supplemental activities, which can be really fun. I'm sorry that I haven't really shown or told you about those. My focus with this class has just been to make sure they really understand what we're doing and have gained the skills necessary to move forward. That's not to say that we didn't have fun doing it. I just haven't done much of the fun extension stuff. I've spent more time on each problem to make sure they understand.

I am so excited to be starting What Do You Expect?. There will definitely be an opportunity for me to write about how much fun CMP can be and how much it helps students truly connect with the material they're learning.

Apparently, I am in an "I love math" mood — I really love this program. It has areas for improvement, but the students who use this program really do excel in math more than they would with other programs or books, which some of my friends use in their classrooms.

Well, until next week…