STAR Review

When we get back to school next week, we have a week of classes, and then we have the STAR tests. Instead of trying to jam in a few more concepts, we're just going to review what we've already learned, in game form. I've got "Who wants to be a millionaire?", "Tic Tac Toe Battle Royale", and "Big-L Bingo" ready to go, as well as a triage lesson (when you look at a problem, should you Guess it? Try it? Kill it?) I hope that this will yield an overall positive result. And when the test is complete, my students won't have to see another multiple choice question for the rest of the year.

Sold out or bought in?

We're back from break, and it's time to gear up for finals. Since DCP is a California public school, my course is standards-based. I use the standards as a guideline for what to teach, but of course I must pick and choose, modify, add, and subtract in order to meet my students' needs and get them ready for higher level classes. Though it's not fun for anyone, the STAR test must be faced head-on, and I want my students to show that they really are learning math (even if it is hard to see on a day-to-day basis). To that end, I am giving a fully multiple-choice final exam. I copied the language and even the formatting of the STAR test. I feel (somewhat) justified in doing this, since none of the quizzes or cumulative exams have had any multiple choice on them. And, if they don't practice the all-or-nothing multiple choice format, they will do much worse on the STAR test (and the ACT, and the ELM, and the CAHSEE, etc.).

Most DCP students simply don't study. We do our best to teach them, but it takes a long time for students to first believe that studying helps, and then to learn how to do it effectively. On our first day back, I gave the students a practice final exam without any warning. They were not thrilled with it, but they accepted it and actually put in real effort. My purpose was to show them what their score will likely be on the final if they don't study at all. It was time well spent, because before giving them back today, I asked students to write down what percent they think they got on the test. Almost every student guessed way higher than their actual scores, and many were quite shocked. Hopefully, this will help students make wiser decisions regarding studying between now and finals (which start next Wednesday).

Here is the practice final, if you are interested.

In the news... again...

Yesterday's article about DCP's gain in the API, reflecting the fact that the students decided to actually take the tests last spring.

Something I Tried Today...

...that didn't work out as I'd hoped, but that's ok because you've got to experiment. One of my goals this year has been to increase the efficiency with which I use class time, especially for review (going over homework, preparing for assessments, etc.). Today's lesson was the last before the STAR tests, so I decided to use all of the time for a final full-on STAR question review. Of course, for any given concept, there are some students who know it and some who don't. Some students need direct modeling from me, some need to work with their notes, some need coaching from a peer, and some need god only knows what. So I am always trying to design new activities to increase the overall value of the class time to the students.

Here was the plan today: students had a quiz of 25 STAR type questions to answer, due by the end of class. On the tables, I placed labels with the numbers 1 - 25. Students were told that they should start anywhere in the quiz that they felt they needed help on, and go to that table number. Students were only allowed to talk with other students at the same table as them, working on the same problem. If everyone at a table was stuck, they were told to call me over to explain. As students finished each problem, they were supposed to move on to another problem at another table. What didn't work about this is that students began to clump up immediately and then just didn't bother moving around. Essentially, they just formed work groups and then stayed with them for the rest of class. They were working, so the lesson wasn't time wasted. But there was no increased pay-off either (I was really hoping that I was on to something). I have some ideas about modifying this for the future, so if I end up trying them, I'll write about it more.

Has anyone tried anything like this, or have any ideas about efficient reviewing techniques or activities?

Staying on top of blogging is like solving a greased Log

Or something. Ok, I haven't posted in a while about what's going on in class. So a summary:

1) The STAR Search(tm) treasure hunt is in effect. The idea of giving away puzzle pieces for each correct answer on the daily 10-minute 5-question warmup has worked really well. Most of the teams are nearly complete with their puzzles, and a few have worked it out already. It was the smiling face of another teacher (photoshopped to make him a bit harder to recognize) with the text "Find Me!" and "Make my noise of disgust." (He has a patented barf-noise he makes whenever PDA is observed in the halls). So a couple teams have done this, and are now working on puzzle #1. I'll post them all eventually, but this one has them reviewing concepts of the real number system from unit 1. There are a bunch of true false questions that they convert to 1s and 0s, and then must research binary to figure out what number is being represented, which will lead them to the next teacher based on a look-up list. An insight into DCP student critical thinking: one student asked me today what to do, because he got the 1s and 0s, but didn't understand how to get any of the numbers. I asked him to read me the title of the puzzle. "There are only 10 people in the world: those who know binary and those who don't." He looked at me. I asked him if there were any words in the title that he didn't understand. He said, "binary". I suggested that finding out what that means might be a good place to start.

2) In Algebra 2, aside from the treasure hunt, I am now desperately trying to get them to grasp logarithms before the STAR test next week. The proximity of the test has forced me to teach the unit totally out of order, and it bums me out. On the test, they only need to be able to evaluate basic logs, change the base, use the log properties, and spot incorrect lines in a log simplification problem. There is nothing about the log function and its domain, the inverse relationship with exponentials, solving real log or exponential equations, and so forth. The order I would have preferred would have been:

1. introduce the concept of exponentials with a "trick" problem like a lottery or the grains of rice on a chessboard type thing
2. develop an understanding of exponential functions - growth and decay, and maybe some translations and transformations
3. present word problems (population growth, interest, depreciation, carbon dating, etc.) and model them with exponential functions
4. use these models to help students realize that we don't have a tool for finding the x when we know the y, and why we need one - springboard to the logarithm operation
5. develop a feel for how logs work, by estimating their value to being between a pair of consecutive integers; compare the log operation to the nth-root operation
   
6. convert back and forth between log and exponential form, and solve basic log and exponential equations
7. learn how to change the base of logs
   
8. go back and use logs to answer the questions in the word problems that we previously couldn't
9. derive and learn the properties of logs, drawing parallels with the properties of exponents
10. use the properties to solve more complex log equations, including discussion of domain and extraneous solutions
11. explore the graphs of log functions
12. use that as a lead in to a brief unit on inverse functions

So instead, I jumped in at 5 and continued with 6, 7, and 9. Then, after the test next week, we'll go back to 1 and move forward.

3) I have a student teacher now, and he is taking over the instruction, as of today. It's really cool to work with someone like that, and help them learn how to become a teacher. But I didn't realize how hard it would be to change my own work habits (I can't just plan where and when I want to), and it's difficult to know how much to do versus how much to let him do, knowing that he's got to try things on his own, yet also wanting to make sure that my students learn the material. He's got a great natural patience and rapport with the students, and once he gets the teachable stuff down, he'll be on fire.

4) We're in Spirit Week now. Yesterday was boy-dress-like-girl-girl-dress-like-boy-day (umm... student council came up with the themes...) and today was dress-like-your-culture-day. Lots of sombreros and mariachis walking around, and apparently "hoochie" and "jeans and t-shirt" are cultures too. I abstained yesterday, but today I wore my bar-mitzvah talit and kipah, which always leads to the expected questions: "You're Jewish? Really? Do you speak Jewish? What's Jewish? etc." Today, a freshman took one look at me and said, "What race are you supposed to be?" Tomorrow is class color day (Go purple! Sophomores! Wise Fools!) and the Numeracy Project will be playing; I'll be doing my world-premiere version of "Slope Is Rise Over Run" (The Animals). That will lead into "y = mx + b" (borrowed from Semisonic), and then the ever popular standard "Sweet Home Alameda".

Update and Upcoming

I haven't posted much recently for a few reasons:

1) We administered the CAHSEE (exit exam) last week, which ate up a bunch of class time. Hopefully, our students will do as well this year as in the past. Last year, we had 88% of sophomores pass the math section on their first try.

2) Perplex City. Ok, I have a problem. :)

3) The last 3 lessons in my rational functions unit are BORING. We just practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, and solving rational equations. Good mathematics, but I don't have any clever ideas on how to teach it, so it's just me modeling the method and the students practicing. Nothing wrong with that per se, but nothing much to be said about it either. On Tuesday, we'll have a review lesson before the unit test which is on Thursday, and the students will spend most of the class working on Showdown cards created for this unit.

To make up for the recent lows, I have a couple of cool things coming up which I'll preview here and then write more about later (after they've been, you know, actually created).

1) The Financial Literacy project I wrote about earlier is now coming to fruition. I met last week with the College Readiness teacher and we hashed out the outline for the project. It will look something like this:

• Freshmen will earn weekly income by performing their "job" - i.e. doing homework, being ready for class, etc. They can earn "lobobucks" in all their freshmen classes (assuming we can get all the teachers on board!). Each Friday, students will deposit their lobobucks with their college readiness teacher, and on Monday, they will receive an account statement.


• They will also receive a weekly bill for expenses. For example: "rent" = their chair in class, "utilities" = worksheets and materials they are given. They must use their money to pay their bills. We are considering consequences - i.e., if you don't pay rent, you have to sit on the floor...


• To make things more interesting, students will be required to sign up for a credit card. That is where my Algebra 2 class comes in. On Friday, we begin our exponentials and logs unit. I will teach them about interest rates and credit cards, and they will design their own cards and rate plans for the freshmen to sign up. They can use their credit cards to buy extras (though they come at a steep price!) such as free dress, bathroom passes, homework passes, listening to music during tutorial, and a double lunch period. There will be credit limits to prevent out of control spending too.


• To complicate things further, when students get detentions, the interest rate on their credit card will increase!


• Each Friday, my students will get a log of purchases made by the freshmen, and any payments that have been made. They will take into account any rate hikes, and will then generate a new balance and create a bill, which will be presented to the freshman on the following Monday along with their income and expenses.


• The freshmen that are able to stay in budget (or maybe hit some sort of savings goal) will earn a big prize at the end of the unit (like a pizza party and trip to the imax)


• My students, approaching things from the opposite angle, will be competing to see who can get their "clients" most in debt. What better way to understand how things really work?

2) The "STAR Search" Treasure Hunt. (Can you help me with a better name??)

To help energize my students and prepare them for the STAR test in May, I will create a treasure hunt for them, beginning with a puzzle. I ordered some blank, printable jigsaw puzzles from this site, and I will create a picture/clue that will launch students into the hunt. Each day, they will spend the first 15 minutes of class working on released STAR questions in teams. For each question they get right, they will earn a puzzle piece. By the time the test is here, they should have completed most of the puzzle. Once they do, and they figure out the clue (which leads to a teacher), that teacher will give the group their next puzzle, which will lead to the next, and so on. Each puzzle will require the students to review some Algebra 2 concept, and will also incorporate some sort of fun puzzle, and will lead to another staff member. Ultimately, there will be a prize for the group that gets there first.

The front side of each puzzle will have the same picture. The backs, however, will be different, and will be part of a puzzle that the class will need to solve together, with a class reward as the prize. I don't think any of my students read this, but, just in case they do, I won't post any more details here. After the hunt, I'll post up what we did. For now, just send me an email if you want to hear more, or if you have good ideas for puzzles and clues I can use.