I think it is a good test in many ways. However, it was a little too long. Very few people finished it. I have decided the most fair thing to do is to give them more time on it tomorrow.
A few of the questions I think they all did the hard way. I have realized [...]
Archive for January, 2008
My First Unit Test
Posted in assessment, tagged test on January 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Test Review
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged motivation, review on January 29, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I always hated the test review day. It was almost as bad as the day we went over the test after we had taken it.
Now, as a teacher, I don’t know what to do. Clearly it seems fair to give the students time to ask me questions about the problems they did to study, to [...]
Black History Month
Posted in race, tagged black history month on January 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In danger of being un-PC, I must say that I have always been unmoved by the attempts to celebrate or acknowledge the accomplishments of minorities in a general way, during certain months, etc. Although I think Rosalind Franklin and Rachel Carson are very important scientists, I would never feel compelled to bring them up especially [...]
Active Reading
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged reading, science, textbook on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Talking with my best friend, I have realized that I need to do some reading with my students. The textbook we have is quite good, and I would like to be able to have them read it and get something out of it.
Besides, how would I feel if I sent honors students off to a [...]
Warm-up Problems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, math, problem, warm-up on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have been using these with great success. I just use problems from the back of the book, so they are nearly always math problems. My main goal at the beginning was just to occupy them with something chemistry related while I took attendance, etc, but I have found them useful in other ways. I [...]
Wasted Time
Posted in difficulties, students, tagged wasted time on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
First period has it rough. First of all, they are so sleepy that everything takes longer. They are at a definite disadvantage just by class starting so early. Second, on homeroom days, the most minutes are taken out of first period. I thought all the classes were treated equally, 5 minutes from every period or [...]
Processing
Posted in Uncategorized on January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today was sort of a slow day, material wise. I didn’t present much. We practiced math problems that combined stoichiometry and gas laws. I hope that it was a good processing day =). Tomorrow I lose about half of my first period class (which is the slow class anyway) to an honors breakfast, so I [...]
The Saga Continues
Posted in difficulties, homeroom on January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In Homeroom.
Tuesday I wrote up 4 people, and my mentor wrote up a 5th. Two of them I wrote up because they were ignoring me when I told them to work, and just kept talking about things.
The first student I wrote up because he pushed through me, physically, to get into the classroom. He physically [...]
Fridays
Posted in chemistry, tagged Ideal gas law on January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Friday I experienced, for the first time, how Fridays can be just a little restless. Everyone is worn out. It was the last day before the three day weekend.
We did the Ideal Gas Law, and I gave them quizzes. For the IGL, I did a simple derivation so they could see that it came from [...]
The Perils of Gloating
Posted in assessment, chemistry, tagged drawings, quiz, retake, revision on January 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So I gloated a little too soon.
The quiz results were not exactly what I expected. Well, the math went as expected. Most students improved over their homework, but some still forgot that Boyle’s Law is different, and some still rearranged their equations wrong. But overall it was better for most students.
The drawings, not so much. [...]
