I would love to have the freedom (or feel I have the freedom) to drastically adjust the speed and amount of content of my classes. For example, this year, I just graded a geometry test, and let's just say that there was a ton of creative algebra flowing around. Did you know that if 2x + 13 = 8x - 7 needs to be simplified, why you can simply divide the 2x and the 8x by 2! That pesky 13 and 7 don't mind. Oh! and did you know that if a ridiculous x squared is embedded in a problem, why, poof, you can separately take the square root of each individual term on each side (or even just the terms that are squared). AND, that's not all folks, sqrt(2x*x) = .... you guessed it 2x.
What I would like is to at this point, stop what we're doing for a day or so and concentrate on attempting another pass at teaching these concepts. Or let's say that the kids get intrigued by fractals by the slight mention of it, then I can plan a mini unit on the spot. But if this happened throughout the year, then there's a ton of geometry I wouldn't cover. I semi see the problem, but I also see that I could make some adjustments that wouldn't be too troublesome (transformations, eh, they've done them before, so if they happened not to see it again this year in a deeper form, not too much of a hindrance).
Anyhow, maybe in lieu of this, I'll plan a self-teaching homework assignment to touch on these algebra concepts, or I'll piecemeal work them into my problems, or something.
Okay, when I'm queen, things are going to be a wee bit different around here. Via la nap time!
I was pretty good at creative algebra - that and pacing my quizzes so I'd never be the first to turn it in. For what it's worth, there are a lot of good tutorial websites out there, like virtualnerd.com, that make for good refreshers.
ReplyDeleteGood point about the tutorials ... let me see if I can get the kiddies to WATCH and learn from them.
ReplyDeleteMs. Cookie