Skip to main content

Successful Differentiation

Today I felt really good about the differentiation I did so I thought I would blog about it. After going over new material, I gave all the students 2 problems to do individually. I had two options so kids sitting next to each other had to try different problems. They handed their problems in when finished and worked on homework. As I collected the problems from students, I put them in the back of the pile if they were correct and the front of the pile if they were incorrect. I thew away all the correct papers so I could just focus on the students who needed my help. I split the incorrect papers into a few piles. This only took a minute, and they were working on homework while I did this. I made one pile for students who made one very common simple mistake. I made another pile for kids who missed both problems. Then I made a pile for kids who didn't know how to do problem 1 and a pile for kids who didn't know how to do problem 2. I called up the kids by their groups, and it felt like a very effective way to address their mistakes. For some of the groups, I had them go back to their desk and try a second similar problem after we went over one together. I'm going to give the students two more almost identical problems tomorrow to see if what I did today worked.

On a totally unrelated note, Chuck got to go to his one free day of day care today, and it's his birthday! The doggie day care has a live web cam so I got to watch Chuck playing with the other dogs between classes : )

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Definitions, Axioms, Math, and God

 Tonight I'm thinking about the unique way that God has created me.  I have been a math teacher. That has been my only career until being a coach these last 3 years. I've continued to be a math teacher while coaching. God created me with a deep love of learning. Mathematics is a bunch of well defined rules that give us an incredible playground of puzzles. I became a teacher because I wanted to do mathematics and work with people. I would never have become a teacher of any other subject. I get that you can learn in Science and Social Studies and English, so why do I love math so much? I love the definitions. Something is how we define it. I think of the stupid Neature Walk videos from high school... "It's called an aspen because that's what it is..." But really, the world operates a certain way, but in mathematics, the world exists in perfection in our minds. When we say something is a circle, we mean it is the set of all points equidistant from a center. Where...
Post a Comment
Read more

God Loves Math - Romans 6:3

 God Loves Math: In which I select a random Bible verse from a random Bible verse generator ( this one ) and ask God to show me a new way of understanding Him, honoring Him, and loving Him while using a mathematical mindset to approach the section of scripture.  Today's Random Bible Verse Romans 6:3 "Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" Right before today's random verse, the author makes the point that, while we see God's grace when he forgives our sins, of course we should not keep on sinning... Then comes our random Bible verse. Then he makes this follow-up statement: "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Romans 6:4) This short section is talking about what the sin in our life should look like. The Bible is very clear that all have sinned and fall...
Post a Comment
Read more

God Loves Math: 1 John 3:24

In this blog post, I will look up a random Bible verse and consider how reading it in context and with a mathematical perspective can teach me something about God.  Today I used this random Bible verse generator . The verse it gave me is 1 John 3:24. "The one who keeps God's commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that God lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us." Before I go any farther, I'm going to ask God to open my eyes and mind and heart to everything he has for me to learn from this verse. In verse 23, it says that God's command is to "believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us." So the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and who loves his neighbor as himself will live in God and God will live in that person. And God's Spirit is the evidence of God living in us.  The first mathematical thought that comes to mind is the difference between 0.999 and 0.999... ...
Post a Comment
Read more