Friday, May 6, 2011

Shopping with Algebra

We have just finished our unit ten project. explain how you felt the project went. Did you work well with your group? How do you think the final product came out? Did you have fun working on this project?

Friday, April 29, 2011

Technology

As we move into the 4th marking period we continue to use the technology that is at our disposal. My students seem to enjoy using the computers and the smartboard, and I am definately enjoying it. We have been using castle learning in the classroom, along with xtranormal. My students love making their own videos, and have been creating some pretty cool math conversations using the website. They have been using my website to respond to different posts on my reflection page, and have been using the calculator to graph functions. The grades have definately improved since we got the equipment and I am excited to jump right into it at the start of next year.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Welcome Back! One More Marking Period.

It's been awhile since my last post. I hope everyone enjoyed their time off and are ready to finish the year off strong. We are now entering the 4th marking period and the regents is going to sneak up very quickly. As we keep working with exponential functions I have a few questions that I want to ask you and hear your response.

1) When will an exponential function increase, and will will one decrease?

2) When an exponential function is in the form y = b^x, what will the y-intercept be every time and why?

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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Common Assessment Results

To piggy back on my last post about my students doing more work and being better organized, the results of the common assessment proved this. I had 18 students pass this common assessment for the third marking period, when I only had 9 kids pass the midterm. That means that I doubled the number of kids passing in one marking period, and I believe that's a result of organization and more engaging lessons. Although we have improved this marking period 18 out of 60 students is still not a good percentage at all. We need to keep working and keep improving. It starts with the students that just missied passing this test. I had four students get between a 60 and a 65 and four students get between a 55 and 60. That means if I can get those 8 students to work a little bit harder to get to that point of success and keep those that are already passing where they are, the improvements will be huge.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Third Marking Period

From my point of view I feel like the third marking period has gone the best out of the three. I feel like I am receiving more work than any of the other two and my students are more organized. I attribute this to the use of binders, and to the technology that I have recently been using in the classroom. I feel like the students are getting more exposure to the material and old regents questions where in the past they weren't given this opportunity.

To my students...

I want you to write in a short paragraph how you feel this marking period has gone in comparison to the other two. Has it been easier to stay organized, have you improved, and why did you improve/not improve?

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

ARRA

On Thursday, March 24th Laurie came into my room and helped me with a few of the technologies that I can use in my class. She helped me get a helpdesk ticket for some software that I would like to use in my class as well as the scanner installation. We discussed using the scanner to upload students' work onto their websites. this will benefit them in their education, because they will be able to keep track of their grades and will be able to stay organized.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Common Assessment

Seeing as how we have a test next wednesday in class, I want to know from my students what we need to review in order to be prepared for it. So, in a few sentences or a short paragraph tell me what it is we need to review next week in class in order for you to be successful.