Today was my first day sitting in the biggest 8th grade class. There are 20 kids in this class, and they can become a little rowdy when they are not on tasks. Mr. Ricke keeps a good handle on the while class. He went over the last homework assignment on the board with them as they corrected each others papers. The students came up one by one as they were called to tell Mr. Ricke their score so he could record it on his computer.
Today in class, Mr. Ricke went over the homework with the class that was assigned the last class period. The students had 12 questions about cube and fourth roots, how to solve them and also how to prove them. He went through them orally with the class while the class passed their papers to the left to grade them. With the students grading other classmates work, there was conflict on whether they should of too 1 or 2 points off a problem when they got them back. I think having the students grades each others work is good because it shows them responsibility, honesty and also to follow the work others showed. With using this there could be some dishonesty or conflict between students about grading each other papers. After this, Mr. Ricke went on to the next lesson on Pythagorean Theorem. He questioned the students on what they thought it was and what it involved. He then showed the class a short five minute video on the history of the Pythagorean Theorem, which aided the students on the understanding of it. When teaching the students o the lesson, he used examples, let the students work in group to see how they could figure the problem out and how they could accomplish the problem together.
Today was a different day for everyone at the middle school, since there was late this morning due to weather. I had the privilege of sitting on the 8th Grade Teachers TEAM Time. They discussed important issues involving their 8th grade students, standardized testing, date which they get out of school and the issue of a teaching leaving for maturity leave at the end of the school year. Once that was done, the 8th grade teachers had time to discuss issues like basketball since two- three teachers were coaches. After TEAM Time, some students had the time for study hall. Some students went to ask other teachers questions, some talked amongst themselves, others work quickly at their table. Students then switched classes, there were about 20 students in the classroom now. Mr. Rickie started to start his lesson with first reviewing square roots then going on to cube and fourth roots. He asked the students questions like he did for square roots, making the students think about what exactly it does and means. I really like how Mr. Rickie engages the students and makes them learn what radicals can do. He does not reject a guess response on what it does but says, "Not quite", "Almost", "You are getting there." He encourages them to keep thinking but he is still steering the conversation to the right answer.
Today was my first day in the Mr. Ricke's 8th grade math class. I observed the class and teacher through the whole period. Mr. Rickie had some students fix a part of their test then once they were finished he went over the whole test with the class. He went over exactly how to do it. He was projecting the test on the board while writing on his computer so the students could see how he was doing each problem. When it came down to doing the last four problems, he did not have the right page that matched the test. After a short time of looking to find it, he just went through it orally with the class. I think going through it where the students can see it on the board was a good idea but when he couldn't find the page the students might have got confused from him telling them the answer. The teacher then assigned review problems to go through for the next 10 minutes until they went over them. This review was to refresh there minds on some things they might of forgot for a standardized test coming up. The students worked in groups of 2-3, all the students worked the whole time. Mr. Rickie had to tell them once to stay on task and to not talk. It was a good exercise because it made the students work in groups and to work together. They then went through the review orally and some of the difficult problems, he had the students write their work on the board. After they understood everything on the review, he then moved on to talking about square roots for their next chapter. He asked them questions like "What is a square root?", "What does it mean?", "What does it do?" He made the students think about what it actually did which was a good plan I thought so the students could remember what square roots were all about. This class is very on tasks and I am excited to be in the class with them this semester.
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Practicum BlogAuthorSummer Bailey in the Math classroom with Mr. Ricke Archives
April 2015
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