I’m implementing Dan’s grading program, with some minor variations. I’m finding it to be almost all positive: Even after 5 years, I’d still have grading guilt. That has gone away, because I know that my kids are going to have a chance to prove themselves again. Stretching the assessment out over weeks, rather than on […]
Tagged TeachingA bit of a livejournal post I ran by mentioned a teacher how put up a “Do not eat the kleenex” sign as a lark, and the inevitable result. If nothing else, it should make us very aware of the potential for a huge gap between our intent and effectiveness in developing our classroom environment, […]
Tagged Behavior, Teaching
I’m doing a bad thing. Some of my algebra kids are stumbling over fractions. They’ve been befuddled by them for 4 years, and freak out when they see them. So, I’m teaching them some very basics. 1) Multiplying a fraction and a whole number: Divide by the denominator, times the top. Aka !http://l.wordpress.com/latex.php?latex=\frac{\times}{\div}!. 90% of […]
Tagged Fractions, TeachingI’m teaching geometry this year. It’s my first time since student teaching to do this, so I don’t have a whole lot of experience with it yet. Proofs are introduced in geometry. There are two whole chapters on it in our book. It seems that, because of the way that standards are written, that they’re […]
Tagged Lesson, Proofs, TeachingI like our new principal. I like the ideals of our partnership. I like the stuff they promised us. But, they’re finding that they can’t deliver. The district has taken a “You want to show us how to make it succeed, go ahead, but we’re not doing your work for you” attitude, and the mayoral […]
Tagged Politics
What is the state with the most people per square mile? As a side note: This feature already paid off in spades. My 5th period is somewhat rowdy, and takes somewhere between 3-5 minutes to settle down and work, depending on the day. All of my other classes have pens moving on paper before the […]
Tagged Behavior, Teaching, Warm Up
How many millionaires are there in the United States?
Tagged Warm Up
So that lesson on multiplying negative and positive numbers still worked great for my algebra kids, understanding wise, even if they looked a little nonplussed at the end of it1. As a recap, it goes through various combinations of video of a student walking forwards, or backwards, and then running the video forwards and backwards. […]
Tagged Lesson, Negatives, Teaching
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