Saturday, August 8, 2015

#MTBoSBlaugust - Day 8 - Busy Day!

It has been a crazy busy day around here, although I will say that I have very little to show for all my hard work!  It's "tax-free weekend" in my state, so I knew I didn't want to go out shopping today, so I worked in my office on my school to-do list.  :)  I didn't get much crossed off, but I'm pleased with my progress so far!

Thinking about my notebook:

Title Page
I started the morning thinking about changes I wanted to make to the INB.  I knew that I wanted to move the Table of Contents to page 2 because as the notebook gets thicker through the semester, it gets harder and harder to write in the table of contents when the ToC is opened to the inside.  As a result, I needed something for the first page!  I know!  A Title Page!!  I do not understand why it is so difficult for seniors in high school to write their names on their notebooks, but hopefully this title page solves the issue.  After some looking at Pinterest, I decided to use the "Who I Am" that was inspired by the MTBoS several years ago.  
To download the file, click HERE.  Note:  This is a view only file, so you'll need to save it to your computer to edit!

These will be on the student tables when the kids enter the room.  They will work on completing this as I go around the room meeting the students.  When we set up our notebooks, this will be on page 1.  I hope students will enjoy reading back over their day 1 thoughts at the end of the year.

TI84 Page
While browsing Pinterest looking for Title Page ideas, I ran across an idea from MissCalcul8's blog that used a TI84 template to remind students of their calculator functions.  I'm excited about this idea and can't wait to add it to our stat notebooks!  Here's the prototype I did today and I would also include page numbers for the student to reference:


Thinking about Assessment:

MC Mondays
One of my other goals today was to think through how MC Mondays would work.  Here is my current thinking:
The front would have 5 Multiple Choice questions.  At the beginning of the year, it will include questions from our previous End of Course exams regarding stat/prob questions.  The back is a blank template that will be used each week.  On Monday, the kids will answer the 5 questions on the front and turn that in.  On Tuesday, we will do the Analysis and Reflection as our warmup.  

The back is adapted from the TPS Review Guide written by Jason Molesky and Michael Legacy.  I did change their "Simple Mistake" column to "Type of Mistake?" after being inspired by MathEqualsLove's blog post this morning.  The Reflection part I'm thinking will probably change to a 3-2-1 structure:
  • 3 things that I need to remember for future assessments (could be anything from content details to distractors to computation, etc)
  • 2 ____________________ (I'm stuck on this one... ideas?)
  • 1 concept that I need to review and my review plan
I'm not tied to any of these, so if you have ideas, please pass them along!

Thinking about Day 1:

Kristen Gilbert
After a lot of tossing back and forth ideas for a new Day 1 activity, I decided to stick with my beloved Kristen.  I did find a great article written by George Cobb and Steven Gehlbach about Nurse Gilbert for any of you thinking of using this activity in your classes.  For Day 1's homework, I've decided to do the AP 2000#1 because it also ties into the idea of "Make a Picture" and it's very accessible for kids right away.  I want to set the tone from Day 1 that this is going to be a class where you have to read, think, and write.



So much left to do... but I'm happy with the progress I made! :)

2 comments:

Ladsit said...

How about "2 new insights gained from taking this assessment"? I've been reading a lot about growth mindset and think having students continually strive for new and deeper understanding is always a plus. I like the idea of doing multiple choice practice once a week. I attempted to do three multiple choice questions as openers each day in second semester, but it became quite challenging to find good questions and mix them up enough. Have you thought about having students track their progress on your SBG standards? I've been thinking about doing something like that, but I want my students to take ownership for tracking their own progress on the standards and perhaps a little later in the year the reflection can change to have them talk about specific standards they are working on

Anonymous said...

I like what Lynn suggested for 2 as well. I use a reflection that I got from @kklaster a while back, Square - what is "square" in your mind? Triangle - What 3 points do you want to remember? Circle - What is still "circling" your mind? I use this weekly and like the tie to Geometry because that's the course I use it in.