Stuff I Did Tonight

School doesn't start for me for a couple more weeks, but I saw enough "first day of school" pictures today on facebook that it got me even more determined to get working. My own kids go back tomorrow so I'll have a lot of time in the next several days to get a good grip on what I want to do this year.

Or that's the plan, anyway!

Tonight I sat down with the intent of starting a few things:
1. Try to wrap my mind around my new General Math 3 class.

I originally intended to totally stray from the standards and go rogue. I thought the class would be made of seniors needing a 4th year class to graduate and wanted to make it something more relevant for them.  But when I saw my class lists last week I realized that it's mostly juniors who will be taking the state-mandated ACT in the spring.  And so I'm back to the standards.  Earlier in the summer I'd found a Bridge to College Math course from Washington state that looked interesting, so the first thing I did tonight was a little more research on it. I think that's the direction I'm heading.

2. Work on beefing up my Precalc class.

I didn't do a whole lot with that except think about how I want to prep these guys for the ACT. Last year I did a weekly activity (via kahoot or quizizz or Schoology) and upped it more as the March date got closer.  When I talked with my classes afterwards if they had any suggestions for test prep, two things stuck out:
        a. Geometry - turns out the kids didn't remember a lot of what they should. This was verified by my Assistant Principal when he shared with me our school results
       b.  More practice with timing - they wanted a full-length test

I can definitely accommodate the full-length test, but I didn't have a lot of geometry resources. It's been years since I've taught the class! (thank goodness)  I tweeted out a request for ACT resources and received these tweets:

St. John’s ACT math publishes two questions a day. I use it for bellringers. They keep a list of all the questions and sub categories used.

— Trever Reeh (@treverreeh) August 16, 2018

Looks like Problem-Attic has a pretty good collection of sample questions.

— Mark Kaercher (@shskaercher) August 16, 2018

I went straight over to St John's site to check it out (you should!  It's good!) and then to Problem-Attic. I've played with Problem-Attic before but it's been years... and what a resource it is!  I now have over 20 assignments created that I will use with my precalc kids to review.  And they're not just plug-and-chuggers; there are some great multi-part questions that will really make the kids think!

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with some school friends with the intent of discussing grading practices (if you're in the area, we're meeting at Panera at noon! :) ). I'd really like to get that fleshed out for this year too.

And shameless-mom-brag-moment... last night my 6th grader had Open House. I stopped in to say hi to her math teacher from last year (because he was awesome) and he told me that she'd scored a PERFECT SCORE ON HER AIR TEST!!  I know she's a sharp cookie, but seriously?!  Wow.

Must take after her mom. ;)