Pi R Scared

  The timing of midterms, I believe can make a difference in students scores.  For years, I worked at schools that gave them after the winter break.  This meant coming back from break and trying to get the students prepared for them while teaching new material.  I know date wise midterms fall on the 2nd week in January but it didn't seem like the best time to give them.   I then switched to a school that gave them before break.  This has its advantages and disadvantages as well.  The upcoming break can leave students unmotivated for them, students may be leaving early to travel, or in rare cases winter comes early and they miss them due to weather.   The last few years though, I've been at a school that gives them before break but not the last 2-3 day before break.  I think this has lead to the best results.  The midterms are given 3-5 days before the break begins.  This gives students 2-3 days to complete the midterm and then 2-3 days to grade and have fun class activities.  O

  How do you compete with social media and the need to always be connected?  This can cause a problem especially when it comes to midterm review.  I choose not to compete with them but to work on student by in.   Oftentimes, I hear teachers say students should be motivated to pay attention just to do well.  Students shouldn't need an external motivation.  We as teachers are competing with many things to get and keep students attention, this means at times changing how we engage with the students.   This year, I'm doing a bingo board for midterm review. My students love using Canva to create so I used this to start the process.  I asked some students who are awesome with Canva to create the bingo boards for the class.  I gave the students a list of words that needed to be on it and they had the freedom to create it how they thought was best.   This is the first step in student by in.  You are giving students a chance to shine. Next, the students get to pick what type of bingo th

 It’s that time of year were we hear data often.  As students approach benchmarks, midterms, and quarter test administrators are watching. When students finish the test the next step becomes what are you going to do with the data. How are you going to get the kids in the red, below passing, into passing? What will you do with the borderline yellow students to get them into green? Finally, what activities or enrichment activities will happen with your green, passing students? I think most of us have heard this after giving some type of test during the school.  You have even thought, what else can I do?  I want to show you how to create a spreadsheet that helps with the collection of the data and then share what I’m doing with it.  The spreadsheet makes it very easy to see who falls where in each topic. Once you have it set up, you can use it for multiple reasons. I’ve used it to track Standard Based Grading scores, progress test, prep for stare test, and more.  I typically teach the low

  We are getting ready to graph but I've struggled with using teacher desmos and see the student steps.  You can use an editable graph so students can draw on the graph.  This is a great way for students to be able to plot points on a graph and sketch a line.  The video below shows how. 

  I love using teacher desmos for activities with my students.  We are learning inequalities and one frustrating part was having them write or rewrite the number line.  I was using media and sketch for my students to show their work.  There is an option however to set an image as a background which allows them to write on the image. This is a game changer and is just an extra click or two.  The video below shows how.