A Nice Review for Honors Courses

It's hard for me to make up a review sheet for an honors course because I want to put questions on the test that are both challenging and doable, and how do you review for that exactly?

This year, I used a model that is from Mu Alpha Theta competitions. Students work in teams of 4 and get a packet of questions, but they can only look at one question at a time (all groups get the same question at the same time). Most questions involve four parts, each of which that has an answer A, B, C, and D, respectively. The final answer to the problem will ask for students to do something with these four numbers, for example, find AxB-C+D.

Here is a simple question:

And here are three more involved:

I started out with some practice rounds and explained the rules. During a competition, if a group gets the answer within the first four minutes, they get 16 points, in the first two minutes they get 12 points, in the first three minutes they get 8 points, and in the fourth and final minute, they get 4 points. However, this was stressing some of them out, and the intent was to review, so instead, I gave the first correct team 4 points, the second correct team 3 points, the third correct team 2 points, and the last correct team 1 point...and in some cases, not all teams earned points because time ran out. I gave students about 5 - 10 minutes a question depending on the question in a 90-minute block.

What I saw:

• students (randomly grouped) working together to solve, deciding how to divide and conquer the problem
• students who got the problem wrong (no points) being helped by students who got the problem right while other groups were finishing
• students talking about math!
• students who did not just see "textbook problems" and practice and regurgitate
• students who saw problems that looked hard but saw how to break them down and solve them
• students high-fiving each other constantly
• Groups celebrating
• LOTS of collaboration and high-level thinking

What I heard:

• "This is the best game ever!"
• "Great job!"
• "Can we do this again?"
• "YESSSS!!!"
• "I could do this forever!"

After each round, I reviewed questions as necessary based on how students were doing. It took me quite a while to pull these questions from the Florida Atlantic Mu Alpha Theta test bank, but it was worth it because, during class, I could facilitate and walk around the entire time. It was highly engaging for students and most were talking about math with a partner or team the entire class. I only had to chime in here or there.

What was cool is that our new Dean of Faculty happened to pop in unannounced to observe the class hard at work!

Here is a dropbox link to the problems I gave each group (cut up), and here are the answers. 

Save teaching time at the beginning of the year with "Are you ready for Pre-Calculus?" worksheet (and Algebra 2 Honors)

This year, we are going to block scheduling. There has been some talk of losing precious teaching time, and so the thought our department has been discussing is, how can we make that time up? Is there a way to do this without teaching a mile wide and an inch deep? Especially since we already felt like we could not get through enough material with the previous schedule.

I have always been a big proponent of teaching "Chapter P" at the beginning of the year, which means reviewing all of the prerequisites with the students. I have felt like I can get everyone on the same page, basically, and I will know that students really DID learn this (if they claim that they didn't in the previous year...though we all know they did!) This takes up a good 2 to 3 weeks of school, but my theory has been that if you teach/review the prerequisites well, you save time later when teaching concepts that are based on them.

However, at the end of the school year, our new department chair threw out the idea that we sort of skip over the prerequisites. I was appalled. WHAT?? There is no way I could do that. Reviewing at the beginning gives students confidence to start slowly with things they understand. They begin to trust you early. And they feel like they can DO THIS. How could I get rid of prereqs??

My colleague suggested the idea of a diagnostic test in my honors class at the beginning of the year, so that I could see what the students know and could skip anything they are all comfortable with. Though I love that idea and started off making that this year for my students, I began to think about the fact that we have so many different schools that feed into our 9th grade--not only several different high schools, but from several countries as well...so I worried that they would be all over the place with what they knew and did not know as a group, and I wasn't sure it would save me as much time as I needed.

Plus, I liked my knew way of teaching since after spring break. When I got my new classroom then with whiteboard wall paper, I really delved into the idea of students collaborating and teaching each other. I noticed that kids quickly became comfortable discussing what they knew with each other rather than working at their desks in a more isolated fashion. So I also wanted to use the idea of collaboration in getting all of the prerequisites out of the way in a few days. And I remembered a former colleague used to use an  "Are you ready for Calculus" worksheet...so looming fear started to turn itself into something I could possibly use in the classroom...

I don't teach Calculus, so I had to make up worksheets for my other classes. I will teach Algebra 2 Honors (out of Algebra and Trigonometry 9e by Ron Larson) for the first year this year, and Pre-Calculus (out of Pre-Calculus with Limits 3e by Ron Larson) for the second year. Before I go any further, let me first talk about http://www.calcchat.com/, which is THE ABSOLUTE BEST THING THAT HELPED MY STUDENTS THIS PAST YEAR WHEN WORKING ON HOMEWORK. @calcchat gives free solutions to odd homework answers to Larson textbooks, and my students (mostly) diligently used them, and I freed up SO MUCH class time going over homework. Yes, occasionally I caught a student copying answers, but it really only hurt them...my D student still remained a D student. Did I mention they also give live help from 4pm - 12am????

But I digress. So, in keeping with making students take ownership of their learning WHILE collaborating, I came up with two documents; one for Algebra 2H and one for Pre-Calculus. On the first day of classes, I will go over some class rules and assign the packet for homework with a time limit...I will likely tell them to spend 30 minutes or so just working on what they know. Then on the first block (90 minutes), I will divide them up into random groups (ala @AlexOverwijk from Twitter Math Camp) and have them work on the rest of the worksheet. I am hoping to use @pegcagle's idea of having red, yellow, and green cups for the groups to let me know if they are good, need help (they are frustrated, but "good" frustrated), or if they are freaking out in need of some major help.

After this class, I will decide if there is something I really need to spend time on, but rather than me teach everything, they will work together. There are videos (most from the Larson site on instructional videos ) and students can use our math lab for help. I think I will set up a google classroom (have not used this yet) link so that they can talk to each other while they are working on it outside of the classroom...or perhaps a twitter hashtag...any ideas on that one?

So here are the two worksheets.




Hopefully it will go well, and if not, I will adjust as necessary.
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Also, here is something fun that I just got...don't be jealous, you can get them, too. They are yoga pants that my colleague told me about from www.amazon.com. There is another kind, too...but you have to google "math leggings" rather than math yoga pants. They have been so much fun to wear at yoga...you should see all the jealous, I mean, weird looks I get from other yogis, haha!! I see a great Halloween costume in the making...or maybe my math club will design their own next year! Hmmmm....

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Don't know what to make for dinner? Go to Pinterest, which is where I always get my ideas. I just made this Chicken Quinoa Burrito Bowl from Gimmesomeoven.com tonight, and it was seriously delicious. I am not the best cook, and this came out really good, which means it's no fail. If I can make it, anyone can. My husband cleaned everything up (he usually does when I cook) so that I could finish this blog!

Gah! School is almost upon us. Where did this lovely summer go?
Until next time,
~Lisa