Mrs. Evans Blog

How do we make kids do homework? I would like to consider having consequences for when a students misses 2 or more homework assignments. If they just miss one, it's possibly they just had a really busy night or forgot their book at school. Stuff like that can happen once. If it happens twice, then I want to have consequences. I wonder if I could do lunch detentions and if they are missing 2 or more homework assignments, they would have to eat lunch in my room until they were caught up. I saw an idea on Pinterest of a homework binder where students have to write down the date, the assignment, and why it wasn't done/turned in. I like this idea, but it only works if I actually collect homework (unless I have the binder and make a student write in it if I see their homework isn't finished when i'm just walking around and checking.) It also takes time for students to fill in things like this.

I have a bad feeling about this week, and I'm not 100% sure why, so I thought reflecting through writing might help me figure it out. Geometry spent the entire week reteaching equations of lines. This is something that we spent 6 or 7 days on earlier in the semester. The kids took a test over it and everything. This week all we did for the first 4 days was reteach, relearn, and review equations of lines for a second time. The kids are taking their test now. Their first tests were terrible... They obviously needed some reteaching and a second chance to show their learning. I'm very hopeful that the test they're taking right now will show their improved understanding and learning. The problem is how easy we made this week. The even bigger problem is that I felt like it was necessary... I feel like I need to apologize to the good kids that have their time wasted because of the kids that don't try or don't care enough to get it the first time. At our professional deve...

This morning I was trying to come up with some good problems for students to use to find local maxima and minima. It's an awesome feeling to be able to combine everything I know about graphs and polynomials and end behavior to create polynomials within the window that I want that do what I want. It's cool to think that I don't have to just guess random things. So the graph is too long and skinny? I can do a vertical compression or a horizontal stretch. I want two local maxes and one local minimum, so I know I need to give it a negative leading coefficient and an even degree. It might be neat to come up with some sort of guidelines and have the students come up with their own polynomials. I wouldn't want them to just guess and check though. I might have them write something that says what they would have to do to a graph to get the desired results. It really forces you to use everything you know about polynomials and graph behavior and actually apply it.

I read a post on facebook today about things in the real world that students don't learn in school. It got me thinking about how we spiral everything in Geometry and Algebra 2. Here's how it works... We teach a brand new unit for about 2 weeks. During that time, we review something from a particular previous unit each day so that by the end of those two weeks, they have learned all the new material a little bit each day and reviewed all the "spiral" material a little bit each day. Then we give two tests, one over the new material and one over the "spiral" material. By doing this, they will experience all material once as new and a second time as spiral. This will allow them to take two tests over every unit. Their first test score affects their grade, but if they score higher on the second test, they get to keep just the higher score. If they score lower on the second test, we average the two test scores. Most students score higher on the second test becau...