Today is the first official day of Spring Break (Monday) and so far I have had an eventful weekend. I started by flying to Los Angeles and attending the 5th of the series of AP Workshops they have had. These are the one day workshop where teachers can attend and get some additional tips, hints, [...]
One thing that I have struggled with is to make review meaningful for AP Stats. I absolutely hate the “here is the review, the test will be similar” wink wink, where all you do is change some numbers and voila, there is the actual exam. That doesn’t seem honest to me, when I am supposed [...]
Where to start. I have been thinking and working with the Exeter materials quite a bit in the last 3 months. I have come to see the value in the methods and the questions, and the way the questions cycle from lower levels to higher levels. But I have to say I don’t see the [...]
I am planning several posts on this week’s time I spent with a math teacher from Phillips Exeter Academy. This first one, though, will be radically different from the others, and it is because I have to vent a little and lay out a difficulty I had today. Today was the last day of the [...]
Back when I was in grad school working on my M.Ed., I had to do one of those philosophy papers on my personal teaching philosophy. All my classmates whined and groaned, but as someone with a philosophy degree, I take that kind of assignment very seriously. In the end, I decided one thing for sure [...]
What a difference a year makes. Or not. No, it did make a difference. A year ago, I was in the middle of my 3rd year of teaching. Do you remember your third year? If it sucked, because you felt like an utter failure at every single lesson, every single exam, and everything else you [...]
Well, some of us are not as good as Dan is when it comes to video. Heck, I bet 99% of us couldn’t do the things he does with video. But why let that stop us from using video, and more importantly, coming up with ways to have our learners constructively use video in the [...]
So one of the biggest problems with using skills based assessment, or standards based assessment, or any of the other names that can be given to the process that Dan Meyer has been educating us on is that Alg 2 is just way to darn big. I mean, really. Rational functions? Composition of functions? If [...]
First things first. Everything I discuss here is specific to EasyGrade Pro 4.0. Why? That is what our district is standardized on. I am sure that everything can be modified to any gradebook, however. First thing, set up the categories we will be using to grade with. Notice that only 15 percent of the grade [...]
Okay, so we have some philosophy down to guide our decision making. We have some rules and procedures, a way to communicate the test questions across multiple teachers, and some basic forms so our freshman will have a consistent set of handouts and standards. Now all we need is some way for the teachers to [...]