It has been awhile since I last posted. Life has intervened, as it usually does. I am excited to start posting again, and I have some good ones I am working on, including my review of the Kindle 2.0 – when I get it, of course! I am supposed to have it by February 27th. We will see!
At any rate, I am sitting in my Calculus class watching my students take a test. I designed this test as a group test. Given an 80 minute block period I let them discuss the five questions for twenty-five minutes, and then they had the remainder of the period to write up their work individually. I have not figured out a way that I am comfortable with to have them submit group work yet – maybe next year. After I grade it I plan on handing it back and having them make corrections. Much as if the initial test was a “rough draft” and the corrected one the “final draft.” The level of discourse between the students I thought much improved over the first test of the year (which was the first group test they took), and I am impressed with their growth. Even so, I am making notes for changes to my curriculum (again!) for next year.
During the last couple weeks the issue of tracking students in math has come up several times at my school. There are teachers and administrators that support an elimination of tracking, at least in the 7th and possibly 8th grade, and there are those that think we do not track enough. I tend to change my mind on this often, so I will probably devote an entry to the issues I see involved. It is not an easy question, and my gut reaction is that, like everything else, a one-size-fits-all approach probably does not work.
Yesterday I attended a discussion at my school about the issue of one-to-one computing, i.e., putting a laptop into every students hands. I would love this as it happens frequently that I would like my students to have access to Excel, Geometer’s Sketchpad, Geogebra, Winplot, or even Mathematica. A teacher from another school that has such a program was here, and while she was excited about what they were doing, she readily admitted that the math teachers were holdouts in that they never used the technology. Sad.
Well, the test is nearly done, so I will sign off for now. I look forward to some regular blogging soon.
Posted by jim 
