Crashing in the Classroom

I've been wanting to write for a few days.  I haven't quite gotten the hang of the idea of bringing my failures to paper and working through them.  But I've been struggling for several days and need to find a way to gain some clarity to my thoughts.

I'm having difficulty with the Conceptual Math class I described a bit before, and it's affecting my teacher mojo greatly.  With my year of sojourn in the world of English, it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to really sink my teeth into the craft of teaching.  I love the process of developing a curriculum map, creating assessments, researching and finetuning lessons.  That is my passion.  I feel more alive doing that than I do...well...teaching.

*SIGH*

And that's where I've hit my wall this week.  Because when the rubber hits the road, I fall flat.  And I kept looking at pics of my TMC friends on my bookshelves to inspire me.

And it was equal parts inspiring and discouraging.  Because the people in those pictures...they can teach.  I mean, like really teach!  And I'm hitting brick walls all over the place right now.  Even though I feel like I'm doing everything the "right way" to try to set the class up for success.

I am perhaps being a bit too hard on myself.  But the moment that my ideals and the reality in my classroom come face to face, I meet with frustration.  I constantly overestimate their background knowledge.  Even when I'm aiming at a point that I think is so far below where they will be comfortable.

SO FAR THIS YEAR

Our first unit in the Curriculum Map we put together is our Math and Finances unit.  The state standards we are aiming to cover are:

M.O.CM.2.5

describe and illustrate how calculating costs, simple and compound interest, finance charge, loan payment and tax functions are used to solve real-world problems.

M.O.CM.2.6

identify a real life situation that involves investing money over time; pose a question; make a hypothesis as to the answer; develop, justify, and implement a method to collect, organize, and analyze related data; generalize the results to make a conclusion; compare the hypothesis and the conclusion; present the project numerically, analytically, graphically and verbally using words, graphs, models, or tables (with and without technology).

In addition, we are aiming to thread these problem solving standards through all of our units of study:

M.O.CM.2.1

use a variety of problem solving strategies (e.g., draw a diagram, look for a pattern, work backwards) to solve real-world problems.

M.O.CM.2.4

choose the appropriate formulas to solve workplace problems and judge the reasonableness of the solutions.

M.O.CM.5.2

integrate other disciplines into the study of mathematics through simulations, research,  and projects.

(Forgive the formatting issues).  Have I mentioned, by the way, that I love the standards for this course?!?  The nature of the class is such that the students who choose it are students who have historically struggled with math and/or are not highly motivated.  Prior to adopting the Common Core, this class came after Geometry in our sequence for those who wished to forego or postpone Algebra 2d.

In any case, we thought that starting with the finance unit might give them a more immediate buy-in since they can see the relevance of this sort of mathematics to their lives.  But my collaborating partner and I knew we were going to be asking them to do a lot of group work this year, and we wanted to set a strong foundation for that.  Plus, a huge change in our school schedule this year meant that there complete havoc to our class lists in the opening week so heavy instruction was likely to prove counterproductive.

So, our first week went something like this:
Monday - Welcome. Introductions.  Review of class policies.
Tuesday - Placed in random groups.  The Marshmallow Challenge.
Wednesday - A recap of the Marshmallow Challenge followed by group discussions on norm setting.
Thursday - Revisit group norm discussion and develop classroom norms.  New groups.  A Building Blocks Challenge.  So far, so good.  And I was feeling quite confident.  Each day the cohesion in groups was increasing.  The participation getting stronger.  The observations about group dynamics my collaborating teacher and I were able to bring to their attention were solid and moving in a positive direction.  We seemed to have them.  Or so we thought...  Then came Friday.

Friday - We attempted to apply what we had decided about group norms to a math task.  And it all started to fall apart.  We gave them the Garden Problem.

We delivered the introduction of the problem a bit better in each class as we started to see they needed a slight bit of scaffolding.  I guess it should've been a huge tip-off when the opening bellringer questions involving calculating area and perimeter of rectangles let us know what kind of gaps we were dealing with.  But we discussed the opener and proceeded to scaffold the class as best we could.

The problem took up all of Friday and Monday.  For two of the three classes, it even dipped over into the start of Tuesday.  They struggled immensely with explaining their own thinking or using picture strategies to approach it.  We had to hint and prompt them all along the way.  Even then, only about one person in each group was engaged with the task.  I still think that after three days, they didn't totally understand what we had explored.

COULD IT GET WORSE?  YES.  YES, IT COULD.

It went down hill from there...
Like...drastically.

The plan was to have them tackle Glenn's Cell Phone problem next.  After all, it had been a "blazing success" on his first day.  We knew it didn't hit on tax functions or interest, but it was a chance for them to dip their toes into the finance side of things as a group on material we thought would be manageable for them.  After two full days, their posters had little more on them besides the name of the cell phone carrier they chose.  Their assumptions about how to do the calculations revealed serious problems with their understanding of...I don't even know...numbers...bills...the world around them.  We had to explain every little step to them.  To get them to create an expression/equation or make a table or graph was virtually impossible for two of the classes.  The third class could do so if we hinted them through the entire process.  Even though the daily openers had similar problems that we looked at as a group...I even showed them a comparison of two different cell phone plans as a table and a Desmos graph and hinted that such sort of mathematical displays were precisely what we were hoping to see on their posters.

By the time class started today, my partner felt that we were wasting our time staying any longer with the project and had each group present their basically empty posters so that we could move forward to the tax function direct instruction that was planned for the day.  The kids expressed frustration at not being allowed to finish their posters, and some even spoke to me after class about being mad about it.  But, I understood and didn't necessarily disagree with her desire to move forward because very little productive conversation was occurring in the groups...all of whom had one (if any) team member trying to figure out the task.

And suddenly, all of the good will we had built up feels lost.  The kids are frustrated and checking out and its week two.  And we are frustrated and at a loss.  This is a public blog so I don't want to describe specific interactions with students in much detail, but the sorts of mathematics that were confusing to them astounded me.  Then, I think about my Twitterverse colleagues who are doing algebra with their 6th grade students and I just want to cry.  What am I doing wrong?!?  Ugggh.  I seriously rethink my profession on a weekly basis sometimes.  Even though...I think I love what I do.

I'll tell you what I do love.  I spent the entire second day of the Cell Phone Project mentally retweaking the entire thing.  I wrote all kinds of post-it notes of how I would do it next year (if this class was still going to exist next year).  And I feel much more confident that my modified version of the task would work...it would get us somewhere...and more kids would be engaged with the project.  But I also think I took away all of the open-ended challenge of the problem in doing so.

How do I scaffold and still keep things open, rigorous and challenging when many of my students are demonstrating a close to 7 year gap between their knowledge and what I'm supposed to be teaching?  And I'm a special education teacher. I should be able to handle this!  But it just makes me want to crawl back into the world of direct instruction where I can deliver the information and they can pretend to gobble it up.

By the way...I'm super excited about my modified Cell Phone Project.  Perhaps I should blog about that.  And then someone more talented than me can try to make it work with actual human students.

*sigh*

The Final Preparations

So, today was our first day back of CE.  Or, as I like to call it, pass notes with my collaborative teachers all day fine tuning our plans for the year.  The professional development sessions themselves were relatively week.  We had a sales pitch for TechSteps, a review of risk factors for AIDS and Suicide, and then an incredible training session for Engrade since we are switching to it this year.  The Engrade stuff blew me away.  I think I'm going to like it so much more than GradeQuick, which was awful.

I also got bombarded with even more tedious beginning of the year Special Education stuff...which is poor timing as I'm trying to work with my partners to plan for my year.  Here is where things stand on the three preps I have this year:

Math 2 - This will be the first time this course is taught at our school.  The state seems to be using something very similar to the Appendix recommendations for course sequencing for Integrated Math.  We've been traditional for years so this is a new approach.  There are two general education teachers teaching this class this year.  One of them is my partner.  I was able to work extensively with the other at at training last week. We developed a very detailed scope/sequence for the year, with week by week objectives (although we realize that we will need to be flexible).  We will be working through the following units:

• Real Number System
• Quadratic Functions and Modeling
• Expressions and Equations
• Similarity, Proof, and Right Triangle Trigonometry
• Circles
• Probability

We decided to save probability until the end because they won't be tested on it this year, and it isn't as large of a prerequisite for their Math 3 course.  My actual teaching partner for this class and I were able to discuss a bit today about how to conduct the opening weeks of the year.  He wants to spend two weeks "reviewing" concepts from Math 1 by embedding them in an introduction to the TI N-Spires and Navigator system.

Conceptual Math - This was the course I spent the most time working on today.  We decided to organize it into eight units, based upon the standards for the class.  This is a course that WV offers between Geometry and Algebra 2 for those who aren't ready to move on to Algebra 2.  For some students, it represents their fourth and final math.  It is a course that is being phased out as we implement the CCSS fully next year.  So, this will be the last year teaching it.  Our unit sequence will go like this:

• Math and Finances
• Math in Art, Architecture, and Nature
• Similar Triangles, Pythagorean Theorem, and Right Triangle Trigonometry
• Perimeter, Area, Surface Area, and Volume
• Probability
• MIDTERM
• The History of Math
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Functions:  Linear, Exponential and Quadratic
• FINAL EXAM

We also decided that we are going to open class each day with Estimation 180 to help strengthen their estimation skills.

Independent Study - This is the class I was most upset by when I was originally given my schedule.  Of course, my original schedule had me teaching it four times a day with no math classes.  Yikes.  Thank God that was revised (sometimes temper tantrums work...in the most professional way of course).  Anyway...I'm a little bit excited about the class.  I've been working on my Classroom Management Plan (which is what our school calls a syllabus-type of document).  The students are going to have to submit weekly reports from their Engrade showing that they are completing work and keeping their grades up.  If not, I will provide the necessary support for them.  In addition, each student is going to pick one independent research/study project every nine weeks.  I'm requiring them to submit a proposal, design their own grading rubric, a four-week status report, and a final "proof of learning" culminating project.  I have no idea how it will go, but I'm a little excited for the chance to experiment.  I was almost disappointed to get my class list and see that I only have two students in each section.  Seems like a colossal waste of man power given that three other teachers will be similarly scheduled each period.

Anyway...that's just my State of the Nation speech.  I'm excited.  And trying not to let the envelope full of Sped nonsense that came in the mail today discourage me.  Much to do on that front as well.  I've already developed the agendas for monthly PLC meetings with my department for the entire year.  I'm hoping I can get my department on board and start moving it in a different direction - one that empowers rather than enables students.  We shall see...

It's going to be a good year.

These People Are Crazy, Y'All!!

And yes, that title is a tribute to Hedge (@approx_normal) and Summer (@mathdiva77) who continue to school me on all things southern.  For example, unless you are uncommonly brave, do not under any circumstances mention this individual:

Ironically, this is my first blog since my post-TMC12 recap a year ago...and it's likely to be brief since I have so many exciting things I want to be working on right now in the midst of my post-TMC13 high.  For those who don't know, TMC refers to a gathering of the coolest and most passionate math educators you are ever likely to meet in one place at a now-annual teacher-led conference.  Twitter Math Camp was born out of math teaching discussions on Twitter but has exploded into one of the most powerful IRL experiences one is likely to have in the world of Professional Development. 


I could easily spend days recapping all of the incredible ideas and resources that I learned about at #TMC13, all of which is archived by the participants at an online site.  There were so many great ideas and I can't wait to see how my teaching transforms and grows this year as a result of all that I've learned.  But what makes this experience so unique and so special are the people involved.  They are...genuinely crazy.  Crazy in a way that I know...feel...understand.  And suddenly, I don't feel so crazy to have found them.  Here is a community of math teachers so passionate about what they do that no one is chiding me in the midst of my enthusiasm for something that "I need to clock out."  They get it!  Like, really get it. 


A group of us gathered near the end of the conference to discuss TMC 2014 and our concerns about preserving the incredibly unique atmosphere that exists at Twitter Math Camp.  A couple of comments struck me in that session as we were discussing what makes things so different at Twitter Math Camp than any other PD experience.  Glenn talked about the idea of the back channel conversations occurring on an equal footing with the "lead" conversations, an idea he expounds upon in his blog.  That insight for me really captured the uniqueness of this experience.  There is no artificial wall created between the math conversations occurring in sessions and the social conversations that occurred after hours.  The entire experience was one big ongoing conversation about life, teaching, pop culture, mathematics...you name it...a rich conversation that integrated what it means to be human and curious and alive with what it means to teach and inspire and to think mathematically.  Where else would ordering pizza evolve into a discussion of the value benefits of combinations of toppings vs. combinations of "presidents" (is it better to save money on several large plain pizzas or diversify with smaller more expensive specialty pizzas?  Yep, even our waiter was drawn into the discussion. 

I met some of the coolest people I've ever had the honor of knowing at #TMC13, people I'm honored and humbled to call friends.  People who inspire me to greater things. Someone else in that TMC14 planning session remarked that what makes this experience so unique is that the participants are unnaturally obsessed with teaching and mathematics.  I wish that had been my phrase.  For now, I'll just paraphrase in the language of my southern sisters and say, "These people are crazy, y'all!"

Coming Down From the Mountain

Ok, ok...will you people stop nagging me?  ;)

I was super eager to blog about #TMC12 when we were heading home.  But within days, everyone started posting and their blogs said all of the things that I would've wanted to say. 

The experience itself was absolutely everything everyone has said it was.  It was surreal.  And without a doubt one of the greatest experiences of my life.  And certainly one of the most productive professional development experiences of my career.  I am putting together a presentation for my colleagues of all of the great ideas that were shared.  I may post it here eventually, but I believe most of it has been archived already.

What my mind has been playing with since returning is how to stoke the fires of the passion that were ignited during those days of collegial bonding.  It reminded me a bit of church camp days as a teenager.  When we would all get all excited over a shared religious experience and then come back to day to day life and try to live out what we felt there. 

I returned home to two days with my department where we were wading through the new curriculum that our state has developed for implementing CCSS.  It was a big dose of reality and the way in which our ideals and visions for teaching must somehow be fit within the bureacratic constraints that exist in our profession.  There is testing and mandates and school practices and the politics of it all.  The paperwork.  The administrative expectations.  All of which can sometimes be overwhelming to balance when your mind wants so much to focus on pedagogy and lesson ideas and...gasp...the students.

#TMC12 was a high.  I was surrounded by people who are as in love with teaching as I am.  It doesn't get any better than that.  I can relate to what Sean said:  "I've never been more excited to teach in my life."  The ideas and excitement flowed freely.  Keeping that enthusiasm in the midst of the valleys is a much greater challenge. 

My favorite parts of the school year are always the first few weeks and the last.  The first few because they are so full of optimism and excitement.  The last few because I start already brainstorming how I will do things better next year...ways that I will improve.  It's exciting.  It's progress.  It's the part of teaching that I love the most.

As a collaborative teacher, this becomes a much greater challenge for me.  I spend a year working with a teacher or a few...begin to make progress together as a team with idea sharing and lesson development.  The end of the year comes and we start brainstorming, "How can we improve on this for next year?"  And then when the next year approaches, I find that I am working with someone completely different.  Someone with a different philosophy of teaching from mine.  Someone with whom I can not just pick up and build and grow forward.  I am back to square one.  And all of the excitement about new ideas and methods of teaching becomes slightly irrelevant.  Saved into my mental files for another year.  And that saddens me greatly. 

So...I've come down from the mountain.  I don't want to lose the enthusiasm and the passion.  I have to find ways to shift that energy in a different way.  I begin to think about the individual students and making connections...what I can do this year rather than what I can't.  But the lessons...the teaching...the ideas...they are still there...burning within me.  And I kinda have to trust everyone else to carry that torch forward for a little while.

Grade Postings - My First Mini-Roadblock

So, I realize that my approach to this SBG thing has been very different than others. I read posts from @druinok and @misscalcul8 and others as they are trying to get their minds around the assessment/reassessment routine with a certain level of detachment because I haven't made that piece a big part of my classroom dynamic. I knew there were downsides to that series of choices and I've been waiting for them to rear their ugly heads. No horrifying beast has emerged just yet, but I'm getting a sense of the nature of the monster when it does choose to make his appearance. So, let me pull back the curtains for you all on what awaits me:

The Background: Our school operates on a Block Schedule. My classes run for 90 minutes each day and the semester marks the end of the course. The class I am doing SBG in is actually two separate consecutive courses that incorporate the full body of Algebra 1 Content Standards in two distinct terms. The grade in one term has no impact on the other, with the exception that a failing grade in the first term will remove you from the course for the second term. Official Progress Reports are issued every 4 1/2 weeks but are grades are cumulative in nature throughout the term. Our administration requires that we assign two grades per week (on average) and grades are uploaded from Edline for Parent viewing once per week.

Our Approach to Grading: Our first unit of study runs approximately one full month. It includes a total of 9 specific content Target Skills. We are also starting to look at an additional 2 overarching Target Skills (Writing; Cooperative Work). We have no plans for mini-quizzes or assessments throughout the month. The kids are working on a group project that utilizes all 11 skills. On or around Sept. 28, they will also take a cumulative assessment that covers the 9 Target Skills plus some Writing. Their grades on the skills then will be based on their group project (which culminates with an individual written component) and the cumulative assessment. Opportunities for reassessment after that will exist throughout the semester and will be more targetted to specific objectives.

The Problem: I like the overall approach we are taking because I like the necessity of integration of the unit into a whole for assessment. It means, however, that we are left with a couple of equally unpleasant grading options as we are working our way through the unit:

1. Leave the gradebook empty until the project and assessment are complete at the end of September. This will likely lead to parent complaints, and ultimately admin heat.
2. Grade the students fairly low at this juncture (i.e. an A means to me a consistent 4, so it would be pretty much precluded at this stage because of the consistency ideal). Kids are demonstrating somewhat emergent abilities in some areas at this point. For example, the writing is extremely weak and not at all where we hope it to be. If we grade the students on what they are capable of demonstrating RIGHT NOW on these 11 objectives (i.e. using work samples, observations, and our pretest), we would be recording a lot of D's and C's which would likely lead to parent alarm.
3. Grade them based on an observation from a given lesson. For example, after we taught Histograms on Friday, most of them demonstrated a level 3 understanding. The ability to regurgitate back what was just taught, however, without truly mastering the material is fairly common with all learners... particularly true with students with Learning Disabilities. If we record a bunch of B-type grades at this point, we will likely be lowering many of them when they attempt to apply the skills on their project and/or assessment. Lowering grades is something we want to do only in extreme cases because it is here that we fear the most backlash. We have aimed to grade conservative, with the room to raise grades in an effort to avoid too many scenarios such as this.

A Possible Solution: My mind has been toying with this all weekend. I logged on to our Edline to play around with the grades and see what options exist. We generally record letter grades, but I realized that it will take a 0-4 set of numerical data and convert it to the corresponding letter grade (4-A, 3-B, etc.). This doesn't necessarily eliminate the problem, but it does allow the parents to see a set of numerical grades alongside the "traditional grade." We can also assign each grade (Target Skill, in our case) a value of 0 points. This would, I believe, cause the parents to see a set of numerical grades without a corresponding letter grade. It would at least provide parents with some concrete feedback, thus mitigating the intensity of parent reaction to approach #1 (above), but there would still be the "So, what is his/her grade?!?" question to contend with.

Perhaps I should just take it as it comes but I'm trying to avoid a situation that leads to a parent calling one of our principals, or worse, the Board Office to complain...leading to the ole' other foot dropping down and killing our SBG initiative before we are really under way.

Any thoughts? What seems to the lesser of the evils here? Or do any of you have a better suggestion?

What If?

What if the students that sit before me held within each of them the kernel of greatness?
What if they all desperately long to make a difference and matter in this world?
What if they want so much to be inspired? Believed in? Seen for their true unique gifts?
What if their future depends on the choices they make today ~ to step out and risk or to remain complacent?
What if all their potential is sitting there dormant, waiting for that spark to ignite it?
What if? What would I do differently…

Week One in Algebra - Introducing Stats Unit

So, I have my plans in place with a little bit of detail for our first full week of school. We gave our class pretest on Friday. I looked at an overall grade (i.e. percentage) so I’d have something to compare it with when we give Posttest (which will require a single holistic grade), but then I also disaggregated the data from the first unit we will cover (statistics) into SBG type scores. The scores were drastically low (highest score was 26 points out of 105) but that means our posttests should look fabulous. ;)

Anyway, we are heading into this new week with a few overall objectives in mind:
· Help them understand our expectations for Weekly Blogs and Collaboration.
· Introduce our first unit of study.
· Get them started on their major group project.
· Give them a fairly thorough understanding of how to avoid (or detect) bias in statistics samples

So here is the plan:

MONDAY:
We have a brand new math lab at our school. In fact, I believe we will be the first to use it. So we are going to start class by going over the Computer Rules.
Then we will head over to the lab for the first half of class. Once we head over to the lab, we are going to help any students who don’t already have an email account sign up at gmail or yahoo. Then we will all head over to our class website (which we showed them briefly last week). We are going to show them again where to access the Writing Rubric on our website and then direct them all to respond to the first blog post. Anyone who finishes early can just spend some time surfing the links we have on there (the videos will be primarily blocked because of YouTube links).
After that, we will head back to the classroom where we have placed them into groups of four based on their performance on the Statistics portion of our pretest. Each group is heterogeneously grouped by prior knowledge. They are going to work on a TeamBuilding Activity that we have modified. Basically, each team will have 25 popsicle sticks, an empty toilet paper roll, half of a paper plate, two mini-cups, a Styrofoam bowl, and a roll of masking tape. They have to work in complete silence for approximately 10 minutes (depends on our time at this point) to build the tallest free-standing tower they can. We are then going to debrief. If we have time, we will work as a class to develop a collaboration rubric. If not, we will use the one I’ve already put together (Collaboration Rubric). I’m also going to encourage them to obtain contact information for their group members at this point, and have a discussion about group accountability and attendance.
Hopefully, we will still have time at this point to distribute the Study Guide for Unit (formatting problems on GoogleDocs) so that we can talk a little bit about the Learning Targets we will be focusing on for the month ahead. I have considered writing on the cover of each Study Guide how they did on the pretest on certain targets (only if I saw some evidence of background knowledge) but I’m not entirely sure.
After class, I plan to add links to the Collaboration Rubric and Study Guide on to the class website.

TUESDAY:
We are going to have our “TRUST NO ONE” Powerpoint on the board as the students arrive. We are then going to open class with a mini-lecture/discussion about the way statistics are often misused in media for the purposes of advertising and propaganda. We will then detail that a bit more with ways a Discussion Introducing Statistics about the ways that Bias can show up in surveys.
We are then going to have them work in groups on a sheet from the textbook that has them critique a planned survey by a travel agency and look for bias. We are only giving out one sheet per group and so we are going to have a discussion at that point about finding out who in your group are the strong readers, the neat writers, etc. to encourage them to assume roles and tasks within the group dynamics.
We will then discuss the group project a bit and have them discuss the options from the Topic List with the group to choose what they will be investigating. They will then work together to complete and submit a Planning Sheet. I am really afraid I’m going to forget to emphasize to them that they need to record the exact age of each person they survive. I’m writing that in bold so that it will help to remind me if I look back at this throughout the week. We are going to need that second variable in a few weeks when we get to Scatter Plots.
After class, I plan to add links on our website to the 1968 Trident commercial that we discuss in class, the Powerpoint Notes, a Video from Khan Academy on Samples/ Surveys, and a link to some data on Media usage where I obtained a lot of the info on their Topic List sheet.

WEDNESDAY:
We are going to start class with some statistics on the board from Opener Stats from Kids Count for discussion. We want to start introducing a theme we will be using as we look at stats this month: “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” in an effort to make them think more critically about what they see.
We will then have them work with their groups to see what data has been returned for their project and what still needs done. I may make up a guiding sheet for this but haven’t decided for sure yet. They will discuss and plan how to ensure that they have all of the required data by Thursday for our the project.
We are going to then talk a bit more in depth about sampling methods (cluster, systematic, etc.) and they will work with their groups on the Running Down a River lesson from @druinok (whose name, I think, will show up in my lesson plans a lot this year).
After class, I will add a link on our website to the KidsCount.org site which was the source for today’s opening data.

THURSDAY:
During our opening day discussion, we garnered a bit of information about our students; personalities and interests. Several expressed interest in art, several in the military, and several in the health care field. We are hoping to tap into those as much as possible throughout the year. We talked briefly that day about a colleague whose son is on the front lines for the Marine Corps in Afghanistan right now. I mentioned that we could gather some stuff to send over from our class. In line of that thinking, we will use our “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” discussion approach with today’s Opener Stats from Military. We are then going to discuss things that my colleague’s son needs and make a plan to gather supplies to donate.
We are then going to head over to the lab to begin Phase One of our project reports. We are going to discuss with them how to access their Personal Drive on our network, as well as how to create subfolders for their classes or subjects. We are then going to have them open a Word Document and go over the creation of Headers and tables. We are going to have them write a few introductory comments about the topic of their project and embed a table with all the raw data. We are going to then have them explain how their group when about obtaining the data (sampling method used) and discuss what bias may exist in the approach they used.
The planning for this day is a bit light because we are always surprised at how little they seem to know when it comes to using Word. We also wanted a little bit of a catchup day in case we are behind on parts of the lesson that were integral. This document that they are starting is something we will be adding to after each mini-section of this unit until they have a full report including a histogram, box plot, etc.
After class, I’m going to add reminder and supplies list for Jack under notes in left margin of our class website.

FRIDAY:
OK, so I still have no freakin clue of the details of what we are doing here. I’m going to meet to plan more details with my partner before Friday. I know that we are going to start discussing methods of displaying data and begin with an introduction of Histograms. I’d like to do a Venn Diagram of sorts by showing them a series of bar graphs and a series of histograms and having them note or report out the similarities and differences. The determination of intervals was the biggest difficulty with our students last year, so that’s what we will need to practice the most. Also, we have TI-NSpires so we may want to do a little bit with that. I think we have three days planned with Histograms before we head back to the lab to add more to their project reports.

So, those are my plans. I have to find a way to spend a bit less time on all the details. I hope this gets easier/smoother as we go. As for assessment and SBG and all that stuff…I’m thinking of making a checklist to observe their collaboration, and I’m going to give them some feedback on their first Blog Writing…but nothing to be formally graded/assessed at this stage.