IMP Day 24 - Real-world percent increase/decrease

Today we had a morning assembly that went over into our time for our 2nd block class. Dr. Montgomery gave me the idea of doing a formative assessment to see if they got percent increase. I made up the following problem...

The students had to show their work and write an explanation. Some of the students had to clarify and/or rework but overall I felt very good about their comprehension of the work!

IMP Day 23 - If I Could See This Thing

Today was a frustrating day. We worked on If I Could See This Thing all block (1 hour and 25 minutes!!) and didn't finish! The "time allowed" in the pacing guide is like 25 minutes. So...I did try several different strategies today. The first thing we did was to allow them time to read the intro and excerpt silently then "notice and wonder" with a partner. We have never done the Noticing and Wondering strategy before. Afterwards I rolled my 8-sided dice to choose groups to share their findings and I recorded them on the board. I told the students that if they would research any of the "wonderings" and type up a summary that they could earn bonus points which are rare in my class. Then we used the same noticing and wondering strategy for #1. They did not notice and wonder the things I was hoping for. In my 2nd go around (with my 3rd block class) we popcorn read instead of reading silently. Also when we got to number 1 I did a better job of encouraging them to notice and wonder about the math part of the problem too!

We started number 2 but will have to finish tomorrow. Dr. Montgomery has made tombstones and death certificates for the students to use for their family members who "didn't make it."

Day 22 IMP - Ox Expressions and Ox Expressions at Home

Today I started class by having each group compare to see who came up with the most meaningful algebraic expressions using the Ox Expressions chart. It was a sad comparison because the vast majority of my students did not do their homework. I had told them that the winner would receive bonus points to try to motivate them.

After they had time to compare, I took up each of the "winning" papers from each group and gave a piece of candy to each of those students (candy always motivates!). Then I put their papers under the document camera and we assessed each expression to see if it was meaningful. This was a tedious process but I am not sure how else to get them to go through and determine meaningful expressions! Unit analysis really helps! Again...we did unit analysis before we started the Meaningful Math books. I do not know if they REALLY understood it then and I am not sure how many students REALLY understand it now, but for the few that do it seems to help to verify whether or not expressions have useful meaning. Also...I talked about "like terms." For example, it means nothing to add the number of wagons plus the number of gallons of water a person drinks per day. I point out that adding wagons to gallons doesn't mean much. However, if you add the number of men plus the number of women plus the number of children it is MEANINGFUL because they are all the same unit - people!

After we trudged through determining whether or not the expressions were meaningful and found a winner for each class (one girl had 14!), I made them do the Ox Expressions at Home activity as a quiz. I look forward to seeing how well they did. These concepts seem to be difficult to "drive home."

Lastly, Dr. Montgomery, our instructional partner and former human anatomy and physiology teacher, came in and discussed the diseases in "If I Could See This Thing." She also has created death certificates and tombstones for me and Mrs. New to use with our classes. I have to prepare for tomorrow's lesson but I think a certain percentage of the people in our wagon trains have to die due to these diseases. More tomorrow...

Day 21 IMP - Kearney and Vermillion

Today I had my students finish To Kearney By Equation. We completed numbers 1 and 2 on Friday so they just needed to do numbers 3 and 4. I helped each class come up with an alternative formula where we used round trips for the profit equation instead of hours. This would have been a GREAT extension of the problem but I just kind of "happened" across it when I was trying to keep them from dealing with a fractional amount of time in hours. (That scares them!)

I almost led my 2nd block class astray because I asked them to compare which river crossing was cheaper between Kearney and Vermillion. THANKFULLY I caught onto the fact that in Kearney you are finding the amount of PROFIT for the Pappan Bros. and in Vermillion you are finding the amount it costs to cross the river. I was able to use this as a teaching point in both classes. We also defined formula and added it to the vocab list. I assigned Ox Expressions for homework and offered bonus points to the student who finds the most meaningful expressions...

**Hints for the future - I use what I have previously called Interactive Notebooks but since I have been using our new textbooks I have not been "giving notes" like I used to. We have not any more foldables...  However, the notebooks have come in handy because we create an entry for each activity in the table of contents and I hope it makes it easier for my students when it comes time to do their portfolios. In the future I would like to make a vocabulary entry at the beginning of each unit and leave enough room for them to go back and add vocab terms as we go through the lesson. Right now I have them listed and defined on chart paper in my room. However, when the unit is over I will take them down. I would like them to be able to have something to go back and review all vocab at once.

I have done ALOT of guiding (talking too much!) the last couple of class periods. My students still demonstrate their lack of number sense on a daily basis! I definitely need to work on my reactions so that I don't make crazy faces when they say something crazy! For some of the harder ideas I have a class discussion and the brightest 2 or 3 students end up answer the questions and "leading us home" to whatever idea I am looking for. I feel a little guilty about this but I am looking at it right now as an opportunity for my stronger math students to stretch. Once I guide them through questioning to whatever concept I am trying to reach I try to re-explain it to everyone. I am specifically referring to the "new formula" we developed for profit in Kearney which was profit = 2W-0.10T where T equals round trip. I thought this formula was easier to use but I tried to not just GIVE them the formula...

IMP Day 20 - 4 weeks... - To Kearney by Equation & Meaningful Conversations

It doesn't seem like we have been at this a month! I have had the books for 20 school days and the pacing chart says I should have finished in 14 days. UGH! I did miss 3 days for professional development so I am only 3 days behind. I also have not assigned much for homework. I will eventually...maybe...my students just don't do their homework much. I am working on it.

This curriculum gives you so many opportunities to have meaningful conversations. I can understand why the title of the book is Meaningful Math! I love the tie in to the Westward Expansion because it has been a LONG time since I have had history. I am relearning too!

To Kearney by Equation once again took much longer than expected...and we aren't finished! It is very neat how the real-world equation is given within a context and then the students analyze what each part means. I took a good bit of time teaching the students how to take notes while they are reading a passage. Reading for information is a skill! Also, I love the tip from Jim Delawder about having a student to restate a passage in his own words. Today I did that after we read aloud in class and it is amazing how many people didn't have a clue. Hopefully I can help them to improve their listening and retention skills.

Trying to get students to work together and write their findings on 2x2 whiteboard can be like ROPING THE WIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is my reflection from today's 5th period class today. Last class on a Friday afternoon...

IMP Day 19 - Wow! Laced Travelers

Today I took entirely too long on Laced Travelers. However, I am beginning to realize how this curriculum gives me so many opportunities to identify my students' misconceptions. I have never really realized this before. They may be able to tell you their numerical answer. BUT they may have just gotten lucky because they just randomly added or multiplied or etc... When you ask them what that number really means is when the real meat of a discussion happens. In my other textbooks and tasks I often didn't have a meaning to refer back to. WOW! So many of my students were SO FAR OFF in the Laced Travelers activity. They just multiplied a couple of numbers and got an answer. There were multiple approaches that worked so I would ask them what that answer meant. I would also ask them if the answer was significant to the task. THEY DIDN'T KNOW... I did ALOT of talking today once we identified that their number sense was so far off on these problems. Maybe I talked too much...but I think they really learned something...I HOPE!

This activity probably took twice as long as it should but if felt meaningful...

I wrote the above paragraph after my 2ndd block class. Many of the same things occurred during my 3rd block class. They made up some great problems for #2. When we started creating variables they did things a little differently than my 2nd block. This led into a realization (by me) of how dimensional analysis can help a little with making sense of the algebraic expressions. We had covered dimensional analysis earlier in the year but it was a struggle for my students.

IMP Day 18 - Laced Travelers, etc...

Today I started class by giving the students time to continue working on their Haybaler POW write-ups. I am finding it hard allowing students to struggle without telling them the answer. There comes a point with almost all of the more difficult problems where I just want to say, "Okay, now everyone watch me so I can tell you how to do this." It feels like I don't get "closure" on some of the problems. Is that a real thing? Teacher closure? I could define it by saying that it is when a teacher feels that he or she has sufficiently told the students what they need to know.

I try to have the students to share but I don't think I do a great job of that yet. I tend to allow them to share a little bit and then I repeat and extend. Repeating and extending is okay...I think. However, my students need more guidance in presenting their findings and I am not yet sure how to direct them. I am going to have to go search some of the resources that Jim shared with us last week.

After the time for writing the POW, I discussed the Diagonals Illuminated activity. Thing is...very few of my students spent any time finishing the activity for homework. That is so frustrating! Anyway, I had one student out of 60 who did come up with the function rule for the activity. He is such a good thinker! He gave me the pattern verbally and I wrote it as he was saying it. Then I gave him a few hints and he told me how to write the algebraic expression. I asked him if he wanted to share it with the class and he didn't want to. Therefore I shared his findings for him.

The last activity we did today was the Laced Travelers activity. It is neat how the authors used a similar situation but changed the way they gave the numbers. There is not an "algorithm" that is reapplied. They have to think through the information that is given and arrive at their answers. I had a few students to do this activity VERY quickly. I started giving candy to the ones who figured out how many men, women, and children went through Westport.

My 5th period class finished their Creating Families activity today. Some of them still didn't get their families correct according to the constraints. This is definitely a case where I really wanted to take their pencils out of there hands and just do it for them! I decided to just give them a grade today (everyone passed but the I deducted points for incorrect families) and then tomorrow I am going to do the kind of just go through creating each type of family with the students and give an example of each of the 4 types of families. While the information for the families is still on the board I am going to have them do the Hats activity. I hope this goes well. We will see...