December Reflections

Successes:

• Geometry - I "flipped" my classroom for the Congruent Triangles unit! Here is the webpage I created to hold all of the information for the unit.  We finished the unit the week after Thanksgiving, I was behind the other two course teachers, but I got caught up thanks to the videos! 
• Geometry - We finished this unit about 2 weeks ahead of where we did last year. I spent time in class doing vocabulary enrichment activities as many of the students struggle with vocabulary. 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - KAHOOT has made this unit so much more fun! I was able to present information to students using Kahoot as we went through the process of graphing polynomials on the calculator! If you don't know what kahoot is, go to getkahoot.com! 

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Geometry - Vocabulary Review - How can we create a comprehensive final on vocabulary to hold students accountable through the end of the semester without having to change all of the individual standard scores? 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - Even at the end of the unit, students were struggling with how to find the vertex of a parabola given the different forms. I expanded the unit review, so that students would have more practice before the final. 
• Reassessment Deadline - As a math teacher, I'm not available for students to come in my room for tutoring during ELT. Next semester, this will still be an issue since I have so many kids in my room. How can I get more students to take advantage of reassessing? 

Questions:

• How can I get students to stay off their phones while I am instructing? Our current technology policy is that technology should be put away when a student enters a room. Students are struggling because they aren't always paying attention completely because they are responding to a text message....
• Is it possible to create a "Comprehensive" standard to give a final at the end of the semester, that is comprehensive of all standards? If we come up with an attendance policy, perhaps this could be an incentive for students with perfect attendance or >90% attendance in my class period. I'm worried that our students aren't prepared for comprehensive finals in college. 

November Reflections

Successes:

• Geometry - I "flipped" my classroom for the Congruent Triangles unit! Here is the webpage I created to hold all of the information for the unit.  At first, the students were very reluctant to watch videos. The students that want to do well, really liked this way of learning. They were able to come to class with questions on concepts that they didn't understand. I was able to address these concepts while students that didn't complete the "homework" were getting caught up. I was also able to spend more time in class helping students identify and practice different concepts. 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - We started a HUGE unit on Graphing Polynomials. Students began with trying to come up with the Vertex Form of a parabola by doing an exploration activity. I really liked this, and so did they! 
• I attended the GKCMPA Algebra 2 EOC Workshop and learned so much information!

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Geometry - Congruent Triangles - I need to find a way to get students to watch the videos. Right now, I don't have any accountability factor, they just don't get as much time to practice in class.  
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - This UNIT is HUGE! I've been trying to give a lot of small formatives, I just need to figure out a way for students to keep track of their progress through the unit...I really like giving formatives that are specific to each separate objective. 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - Students aren't doing any practice outside of class. Most of this unit is centered around the graphing calculator. Can I create 2.0 practice for homework that doesn't require a calculator? (Calculating the vertex and axis of symmetry?)

Questions:

• How can I get students to stay off their phones while I am instructing? Our current technology policy is that technology should be put away when a student enters a room. Students are struggling because they aren't always paying attention completely because they are responding to a text message....
• Recurring because I still don't have an answer: How can I hold students accountable for homework? I need to still go over it to make sure the students that do the homework can check the answers they got.

October Reflections

Successes:

• Geometry - Angle Pair Relationships - I made an alternate version of this foldable. I pretty much followed Sarah's explanation. I had the students pick two colors and we colored all the "big" angles first while we talked about vertical angles, then we colored the "small" angles while we again talked about VA, then linear pairs. I then asked them to form names of the other relationships after I explained the concept of the transversal. They put names together before we looked at and filled out the chart on the other side of the foldable. I also told them by the end that all of the "big" angles were congruent to each other, "small" congruent to each other, and "big" + "small" = 180 (linear pair). The students held on to this foldable through out the unit! 
• Algebra 2 - Systems of Equations - Each of the 3 ways to solve a system was introduced differently. Students were comfortable with each of the different ways independently. They had a hard time differentiating how to solve a system when they weren't told which way to use. 
• Algebra 2 - Factoring - Taught the asterisk method for factoring a trinomial. The students really caught on and bought into this rather than expanding and factoring by grouping. 
• Parent Teacher Conferences were very beneficial for me as well as parents. We still have quite a few parents that don't understand our system of SBL. 

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Geometry - Logical Reasoning - Many students scored below where I had wanted them to on this summative. Many of these concepts are difficult and perhaps we need to spend more time on them, rather than moving quickly through this unit.
• Geometry - Angle Pair Relationships - Students scored higher on this summative than the LR unit, but still not high enough. 
• Algebra 2 - Students don't fully understand the concept of factoring. There is a large misunderstanding of what the process does. Since this was my first year teaching kids that had already seen factoring, I didn't focus on the foundation of factoring. When I introduce factoring next time, I will make sure students have an understanding of the basic terms. 

Questions:

• Should I be spending more time on 2.0 level material vs 3.0 level material? Is there a right way to do this? 
• Recurring because I still don't have an answer: How can I hold students accountable for homework? I need to still go over it to make sure the students that do the homework can check the answers they got.