11/29

I gave some quizzes before the break and I changed the way that I usually give them. I gave my algebra students an opportunity to take the quiz with a partner. They both had to turn in the quiz and I only graded one of the two and both got the same grade. The students were explaining the problems to each other and making corrections on their own. It forced some of the students to teach and to learn from each other. They do not seem to do this when it is only a homework assignments. It was still a pretty traditional assessment, but I think they were able to have a better understanding by learning from each other.

11/22 grading

I have always thought of my grades as having an effort portion and a knowledge portion. I check homework for completion (effort) and quizzes and tests for knowlegde. The problem is that parents that do not come to back to school night or email do not know that this is how the grades work. I think that it would be beneficial for my gradebook to show that this is an effort grade and not a knowledge based homework assignment. I just need to figure out how to change my test grades so that they more accurately show the knowledge gained during each chapter.

11/22

I looked through the projects that I had turned in for my math website project. The students used a wide range of methods to show their results. I think I only had one person write a paper and the rest were posters, powerpoints, brochers, flyers, etc. The students were able to find a lot of resources that will help them if they remember the reson why we did this project. I am hoping to display some of the project in class and in the office so that others can benefit from the research that my algebra students have done. They introduced me to some different avenues that I did not know about. I think it went well, now I have to figure out how to grade these.

11/18

I had students turn in their website review projects. Most of the students found websites that were very useful for this class and future classes. Most of the students respnded that they would visit that website in the future for math assistance or maybe to play a game on the website. I think that they were able to add a tool in their toolbox that will always be acessible to help them in math. The projects turned in were of a wide variety and each student was able to express what they found in their own way. I think it was a successful project that will continue to be useful to my students in the future.

11/15

I went to the computer lab on Friday and had my students search around on some of the websites that they had found about math. I had them turn in a short review of each website that they visited and tried to limit them to 3 websites so they could get more in depth into what was available. I then assigned a homework that made them pick one of the websites and review it in depth. The assignment was presented as: each student will pick one math website and they will put together a review of the website as if they are the salesman for the website and they are trying to sell their website to our algebra class. They need to find out what the benefits are for this years class, future math classes and some of the downfalls of the website. This project is due 11/18 and the finished product is open on what they turn in to me (poster, paper, powerpoint, flyer, etc.).

11/10

I had my algebra students visit a math website and bring in the address. I came up with a list of 10 different websites that are related to math. I am not sure where I am going to go from here. I am thinking of going to the computer lab to have them surf 3-4 of the websites from the list. Then I will have them focus on one website that they will reviewas a project. Still working on the details.

11/7

I spent some time in two of my classes letting the kids discover new applications on their graphing calculators. It seemed that most of them will only use a calculator when told to or to play games. I was hoping that it would encourage them to try to learn some new functions that the calculator has that cna be beneficial. The class went well and everyone was working together to show each other how to use some of the different functions. I hope to expand this later to post functions on the internet with blogger but I think this was a good start. The students seemed to like the time in class to discover and almost eveyone said they learned something new that day.