Musings from Mrs. Galvan

Last week in Algebra (well the week before retreat) we started our unit on graphing linear equations. Generally we begin with tables and move quickly toward graphing via intercepts, the slope formula and slope-intercept. This year being my first time through with truly interleaved daily problem sets , they had already had several opportunities to remember from pre-algebra graphing via tables and calculating slope via counting rise over run from a graph. Hence, right away we were able to dig in to more detailed tasks. On day 1 after playing polygraph (lines), they began thinking about MAP's  Comparing Value for Money: Baseball Jerseys . From: http://map.mathshell.org/lessons.php?collection=8&unit=8200 They worked in pairs and quickly established that the price per t-shirt corresponds to the slope and that the one-off print set cost was the y-intercept. Actually graphing on paper was harder as I gave them a graph that went from 0 - 500 for the range and 0 to 25 for ...

So every year around this time, my school shuts down and takes all the kids on retreat. I typically accompany upwards of 200 9th graders on a canoe trip down the Colorado River. It is an awesome trip and a great way for the class to bond. I have this year off though and while I will miss being part such a formative experience for my students, I am so excited to sleep in my own bed and get caught up with work and blogging. Week 7 = catch up on grading, planning, blogging and interleaving project. The last few weeks in algebra have been challenging for my students as we have been exploring complicated word problems. We worked on showing our thinking by writing and labeling all helpful expressions for a problem. The most challenging were the coin problems, interest problems and mixture problems. For each type, I lead my class through a discussion on how to translate the verbal expressions to algebraic ones. While it wasn't lecture, it also wasn't inquiry. A few days after w...

Mrs. Desman Lesson Idea

While I was not officially trying to start a 180 blog... more like I was planning on blogging occasionally, I still take a photo of my agenda everyday and photos just need to be published. Hence, my thought to blog occasionally became a secret goal to blog daily, or almost daily. This wishy-washy goal for blogging resulted in almost a month of zero blog action. I can't just blame the weak goal setting - like all of us, my free periods are spent helping kids, planning, meeting, eating, making lists online, making lists on post-its and especially implementing standards based grading for Algebra. Things have improved on the SBG front. I used to grade assessments a page at a time. Now I grade one student at a time which I think helped to make grading the unit 2 tests go faster. But because part of my plan involves frequent skill checks that need a quick turn around for grading and because I am still learning how to use Active Grade, I can't call myself an efficient Standards Base...