My wife chose "Short Skirt, Long Jacket." My brother in law chose "Stickshifts and Safetybelts." I chose "Love You Madly." Sorry that's not about school but it was pretty epic.
AP Stats
Finally did @druinOK's card sort for sampling techniques. The students had some good conversation, but seemed to think they knew the material better than they actually did. I'm not too clear on this situation: "To determine if average home prices differs among geographic regions, researchers use current real estate listings to randomly choose 500 homes for sale from each time zone." I thought it was multistage with cluster then SRS. I thought that the time zones could be used as the clusters. The key said it was stratified random. I can see that but I'm not sure if I believe it fully.
We had 40 minute periods for most classes today. I was fully aware of this and I was keeping a close eye on the clock. The only problem was that I forgot to take into account what time we actually start school. We start at 7:50, which meant that class ended and 8:30. I was so focused on reminding myself "40, 40" that every time I looked at the clock I thought we were ending at 8:40. We were not. Things would have wrapped up very well with ten extra minutes (isn't that always the case). Students were checking their answers, I was getting ready to bring the class together and then BRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGGGGG.
Algebra I
So far I have 10 students who still have 100%. It's still early and no tests are in, but that's two weeks of no missing assignments and two perfect quizzes. I'm very proud of them.
My student who was suspended on the second day of school is not making academic progress and I can feel him digging a big hole. He had a really terrible year last year and it obviously got off to a poor start this year. Student relationships are very important to me and I know that I will be very disappointed in myself this year if I can't reach him. I did have a positive interaction with him today, though. I asked for students to get out paper and a pencil for notes. I saw that he didn't move to get his stuff out, so during the shuffle of paper and whatnot, I quietly went over to him and prompted him individually. He said "I forgot my shi -- my notebook." I was very pleased that he caught himself so I thanked him for using classroom appropriate language. He started to apologize. I told him "There's no need to apologize. You did the right thing. You caught yourself and I appreciate you using appropriate language." I kinda felt like I was Jedi mind tricking him. It reminded me of a book on coaching soccer by Tony DiCicco, Catch Them Being Good.
Algebra II
We started talking about parent functions today, so I figured that was as good a time as any to tell them that I will soon be a parent. Second period was like stone, a kid in fourth period gave me a standing ovation while still seated at his desk (he literally stood up with the desk still on him), and fifth period had lots of follow up questions and suggestions for names. Fourth period was weirdly long today because of the rally and there was a birthday in class. We finished the lesson with nearly 20 minutes left. They got all excited and said we should have a party. I told them we could party like I did in college.
That's me, furthest from the camera at a party over Spring Break reading Algebra by Michael Artin. That was one hell of a party. I didn't tell the students what was in the cup. On another note, the two in the foreground are getting married in two weeks.
Good day. I hope yours was as well.
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