Last Day

Another year, come and gone. We had an end of the year assembly today that was super long - about 2.5 hours. There were lots of recognitions of student successes, good-byes to leaving teachers, the Numeracy Project played, I presented the winners of the Algebra 2 treasure hunt, and we saw the DCP mini-movie (once it gets published to the web, I'll link to it).

I gave back the finals to my Algebra 2 honors students - all of them passed the final but two, and everyone did end up passing the class. Here's how the course grades were distributed:

10|6
9|0 0 2 2 4
8|0 1 2 2 2 5 5 6 6 7
7|0 4 7 8 9
6|
5|

The student with the 106% is a math monster... She's gotten more than 100% on just about every single assessment I've given (she always gets the bonus question, and usually doesn't miss any regular credit). She is also one of the pair who found the treasure. When I gave out class awards, she won the "I'll know more math than Mr. Greene in a few years" award.

After the assembly, there was a pizza lunch (along with food tasting from our new food company for next year, Revolution Foods), music, dancing, soccer, yearbook signing, and so on. I did photo shoots with different students, informed kids that need to take summer school (I wanted to tell them first before they got a notice in the mail, and encourage them to look at it as a chance to improve their skills), and got a marriage proposal from the student I wrote about in my previous post! I declined, but told her I'd be happy to help her make a study plan next year instead. I got some notes of thanks, and the best student gift ever: some of my A2H boys called me over, clustered around me, and gave me a bird-cage shaped present wrapped in toilet paper and tape. They said it was in appreciation of all that I've done for them this year. It was a Transformer from the new movie coming out this summer (they remembered me talking about my love for Transformers all the way back to the functions unit, when we did transformations and translations). This year, like all years, has had its fair share of challenges and problems. But it was nice to end it like this - out in the sunshine, shaking hands and giving hugs, congratulating students, and wishing them a good summer.

Tomorrow, I'll finish cleaning out my classrooms and packing, and tomorrow evening is graduation. Then, the year will really be over. I can't believe that I've been here for 7 years now, but I don't know how I can ever tear myself away from these kids.

Next week, I'll be helping facilitate a math/pedagogy workshop for all the elementary and middle school teachers in a couple of local school districts. The education department at San Jose State got a large grant to put this together. I don't know how it will go, but it will be very interesting. I'll post what I can about it as it happens.

I'm really not obsessed with transformers, I promise!

...but this is just too funny. Click in the box to play the video.

Next Lesson: Transforming Functions

My renewed enthusiasm for old childhood joys has come at an opportune time. In Tuesday's lesson, we will be working on transforming functions. I have a few transformers that have (incredibly) survived until now, which are currently gathering dust on my mantle. Hmm... do I bring in the opportunistic, irritating Starscream, the powerful, pea-brained Grimlock, or, everyone's favorite transforming boombox, Soundwave (though his head is broken off and I don't have any of his tape-minions).

In any case, my idea for this lesson is to have the students work on a scaffolded exploration for most of the class. They will work on learning transformations, as well as absolute value (of linear) functions. They can work individually, in pairs, or in groups, but each person must turn in their own paper by the end, and it will be graded like a quiz. The exploration/quiz is broken into 4 parts:

1) Creating absolute value functions.
In this part, students will graph a linear function. They will then graph the absolute value of the same line by looking at the y-coordinates of several points, and plotting their absolute values. They will have to then answer questions that help them see that y = |mx + b| will always make a V shape.

2) Translating absolute value functions.
In this part, students will review horizontal and vertical shifts from the previous lesson, but applied to absolute value functions.

3) Transforming absolute value functions.
In this part, students will plot out y = |x| and various transformations in the form y = a|x| to see what happens. By the end of this part, they should have a good sense for how the coefficient a affects the shape of the graph.

4) Synthesis
In the final part, students will put together what they know about translations and transformations to create the graph of f(x) = 2|x + 4| - 3. Then, they will generate a table and see if their ordered pairs fall on the graph that was created via the translation/transformation process.

After this, we will end the class with 15 - 20 minutes of direct instruction where I help formalize their understanding of transformations. I'm worried about running out of time for this. If I do, I can push it to the next class, and that will be ok, though it would be better in the same period. I hope that making the exploration into a quiz will help students focus and be more efficient with their time.

The lesson will be posted on ILoveMath.

Update:
Whoops.. I forgot that the entire sophomore class is out on a field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for biology. My classes today have had about 4 people each. I got some good one-on-one time with my handful of juniors, and I'll just have to push things back to Thursday.

80's Cartoons Say it Best!

"Leadership, my sine function" - Starscream

(said derisively of Megatron's prowess as a commander)