Fear of Fractions

In Precalculus we just finished the first of the two most challenging units of the year.  Students had to draw graphs of sine and cosine functions that had been transformed in some way (stretched/compressed, moved vertically or horizontally, etc.).  The ultimate goal was to complete word problems that could be solved by writing a sine or cosine function to model the situation.  One would think that the most challenging part of this would be the word problems, but those actually went fairly well.  No, it was the fractions required to correctly label the scale on the x-axis that caused meltdowns even among some of my better students.

Note that if you just look at the fractions this student thinks the order should be 5/2, 1/4, 3/2, 1, 2/2, 2/3.  Yes, my high school graduates students who think that 3/2 is less than 1, 2/3 is greater than 1, and 2/2 is a different number from 1.  I just hope when they go to college they don't mention who their last math teacher was.

Red Badge of Courage

Some of my IB juniors have been struggling lately. It's tough to go from always being the best math student in a class to working hard just to get B's. I give them a lot of credit because they are rising to the challenges that I set for them and learning both math and problem solving. I can see a big difference in their ability to explain what they know, which is often very difficult for gifted kids who intuitively understand things.

To commemorate their completion of Precalculus on Tuesday, I decided to give them an award. I printed out this image onto 3" x 4" mailing labels to make giant stickers. I wasn't sure if they would think it was a dumb idea, but earlier in the year I had made them unit circle stickers which were a big hit, so I figured it was worth a try. I thought they might stick them to their notebooks, but half of the class immediately put them on their shirts! One kid claimed that "this is the nerdiest thing I've ever worn." (I should hope so!) I figured they would take the stickers off as soon as they got in the hall, but at least a few minutes later they were still wearing them. I'm so proud of my little nerds! :)

Report Cards

The end of the quarter is tomorrow which always brings a flurry of last minute makeup work as well pleas for me to bump up grades. It can also bring some amusing conversations, such as this one that occurred with one of my seniors last year:

Student: Could you please stop writing comments on my report card?
Me: Well, we have to write comments for anyone who got a C or lower. Why?
Student: It makes it very difficult to Photoshop!

Yes, the student who rarely completed homework spent several hours Photoshopping her report card to improve her grades and comments. I guess her parents never figured out how to log in to the online gradebook??

Back to Work

After a 16-day hiatus, we finally started back to school on Monday. Boy was that a tough day! I tried to keep my classes very interactive to help the students ease back into things, but they were too tired to do anything even quasi-fun. They were supposed to make graphs on poster paper and usually the mere mention of markers gets them excited. On this occasion they were too lazy to even hang up their posters and tried to complete the project without moving from their desks. It's a good thing I had already moved the desks into groups or we might not have gotten anything done!

Today was not much better - they seemed even more exhausted and looking at the class gave me flashbacks to zombie movies. On the plus side we got a ton accomplished because they were sitting quietly and dutifully taking notes. We'll see if they remember anything next class.

(Let it Snow) x 3

Today is the first day of Christmas vacation and I get to celebrate it with more than a foot of snow!  Most of you who read my blog can see this same storm out of your window, but I thought the rest of you might enjoy some photos.  I went for a 2 mile walk in the neighborhood and it was amazing how many people were trying to drive someplace.  Several said they just wanted to go buy some milk...didn't they think about this yesterday?  Are they really so desperate for milk that it's worth digging out the car, pushing it through drifts, and digging out a spot when they get back?  And if so, wouldn't it be faster just to walk??

This is a good indication of what the back roads looked like 2 hours ago - and it's still snowing!

It's hard to capture in a still photo how hard it's snowing.

Celebration

Tomorrow my students take their midterm exams.  Historically our students do very poorly on their exams (across the board, not just in math).  So before the potential downer that tomorrow may bring, I thought I should take a moment to celebrate the good things that are happening in my classes.

- My IB juniors are getting better at problem solving and explaining their solutions, which was my goal for the year.  Last week I gave them a bunch of very challenging problems and it was a pleasure to watch them bounce ideas off of each other.  It was hard not to give them help but it was worth it to see their delight when they figured it out by themselves.

- One of my Precalc students memorized the unit circle.  (If you don't remember, the unit circle contains all of the basic trig values like sin 30 = 1/2.  You probably once had it memorized too.)  We don't require our students to memorize the values because it would be impossible for some of them, but anyone going on to Calculus needs to know them.  So I made it an extra credit opportunity for students who could take the test without their circle.  Only one student took me up on it but it was a pleasure to see her figure out all of the patterns and grow to a deeper understanding as she figured out how to commit it to memory.

- Another Precalc student has turned around from barely passing first quarter to getting A's on every test.  He attentively takes notes and asks excellent questions.  His parents and tutor get all of the credit on this one, but I get to reap the benefits.

- My students were quiet and focused during our review day for the exam.  Typically these days have been a disaster for me as some students just don't care enough to pay attention and end up disrupting the students who want to learn.  This year I am really blessed with studious kids - maybe the exams won't be so terrible after all!

Surviving November

I didn't realize how long it had been since I last posted.  Last week I was off for a glorious 9-day Thanksgiving break and tried to avoid thinking about school.  Even with that ridiculously long break, November is still consistently the toughest month of the school year.  In fact this was the first November that I didn't start planning my next career move.  What makes November so crazy?  I'm not completely sure, but here are some contributing factors:


- The honeymoon is over
The ice has been broken, personalities are coming out, and as the course difficulty increases, stress sometimes brings out the worst in people (myself included).

- Parent-Teacher Conferences
I actually really enjoy these, but teaching from 8-12, meeting with parents in 10-minute intervals from 2-8, and then getting back in at 7 the next morning to teach again is exhausting (especially for an introvert!).

- Senior Retreat
Every faculty member goes on retreat with one of the classes.  The seniors go to a retreat house for a brief 27 hour retreat (Monday afternoon and Tuesday).  Only 60 seniors go on each retreat and it's actually pretty low-key and relaxing.  The downside is having to make sub plans and grade the papers that I left for the students to do to make sure they actually learned something while I was gone.  I also tend to be wiped out for the rest of the week after getting very little sleep on a Monday.  I really do not function well without adequate rest (how did I survive college?).

- Many consecutive 5-day weeks!
This year the administration got rid of all of our Professional Days (instead we get an hour of team planning every Wednesday morning).  Having one day a month to get caught up and get a break from the students was rejuvenating.  I don't think I realized how much those days helped with sanity until they were gone.

Well, all that is behind me now for another year.  Just two weeks until exams and then Christmas break!