#MTBoSChallenge Week 3 Sunday Summary

This past week was our first week of classes!  We are an A/B schedule ... I saw each set of students twice.  Day 1 was a bit challenging because we had too much to accomplish but on Day 2 there was time for student discussion.  I loved the hum of math talk in the room!

3 things that happened this past week ...

• On Day 2 I built in time for partners to discuss graphs, determining domain and range.  The hum of discussion, students helping students was exciting.  And then we extended the time to discuss a problem situation where students put together all of the skills we had learned thus far ... entering data in their calculator, examining the scatterplot, finding the line of best fit, and answering analysis questions.
• The homework this week was watching a few videos and 10 problems - multiple choice about continuous vs discrete functions and domain and range.  The problems were not routine.  I'm excited students are emailing me with questions, wanting to clarify their thinking.  They are eager to learn!
• I have collected over 100 parent emails and sent out my weekly update. I've found that posting a weekly email about what we are learning in class is very helpful in building home/school relationships!

2 things I'm working on in the coming week ... 

• I need to relax and slow down a bit. I am moving too fast for a few of my students - based on the questions they are asking.  My teammates are taking the lessons slower than I am (about a half period behind me) - but I have all the TAG students.  I do have time built in for reteaching before our unit test.  I have review stations in the works.
• Students get their school-assigned laptops this week.  I've already started using technology.  We will need to spend a little time in organizing the links we use, bookmarking, and entering user codes.

1 thing I haven't figured out yet ... 

• All summer I thought about and wrote about working on numeracy with my students.  These first few days of class have so much built into them ... schedules, textbooks, routines, procedures.  In addition we are given a curriculum calendar ... 5 class days for the first unit.  So I have not had 5 - 10 minutes to work on the numeracy tasks I planned.  I do see opportunity to start those as soon as class changes and such have settled down!