What`s Trending in Math and Science
September 14-18
This Week at a Glance
Tuesday - Art, GATE
Wednesday - Music
Thursday- Science Chapter 1 Test Progress Reports; Spanish;
Friday- Part One Ratio and Proportions Math Test
Progress Reports:
Dear Parents,
I want to apologize, I had anticipated being able to send out progress reports last Thursday. I did not realize the limited time I would have this week and last due taking on new 6th grade responsibilities this year, and being sick over the weekend.
I am working to have them out to you ASAP.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Upcoming Events for you Calendar:
9/17 Dine out: Roundtable
9/18 Parent-Child Lunch
9/25 Collaboration Day
Pali Mountain
Science
The Chapter One test is Thursday. Student classwork is also due Thursday. Students have a study guide they received last Thursday which is due with classwork on the test date. However, if students wish for the opportunity to go over the answers with their peers, they will be able to do so if they have the study guide completed by Wednesday.
Mathematics
There is a small Unit Test Part one on Ratios and Proportions this Friday. This week we are reviewing concepts in class. The test will be short, with only a few questions which are aimed to measure how well students are transferring conceptual understanding to new situations.
Also, an insightful tidbit I came across in my readings this week that pertains to our classroom learning environment:
Engaging learners in metacognitive activities—helping them become more aware of how to focus on critical ideas or features of problems, generate themes or procedures, and evaluate their own progress—can improve transfer and reduce the need for explicit prompting. Two general metacognitive questions learners can ask themselves to facilitate transfer are: “How is this problem like others I have solved before?” and “Does anything here remind me of anything I have learned earlier?” (Gage & Berliner, 1998, p. 301). [See Session 9, Metacognition.]
A note about homework: Students should be working to make their own sense of homework problems, though they should not be struggling with the problem for hours. If you student gets stuck on a math problem and cannot make sense of it through questioning, making connections, looking for regularity or structure and they have exhausted all their strategies- please encourage them to write down what they know, where they were stuck, and have them move on. They can return to it later if they would like, though it is most important that they come in prepared to ask questions of others and myself.
I realize this is a new concept for many of the students, who want to make sure they are getting the right answers, but through this process, they build confidence in their abilities, new understandings in their own conceptualizations, resilience because they learn how to make mistakes, perseverance from trying again and finding a successful strategy that works for them and ownership of their academic achievement and success - all very motivating factors in a student and persons academic career.
And though these are the reasons I hope that they struggle a little bit with some of the problems, I do not want their struggle to persist on for hours, or even one hour.
Upcoming Math Test : Friday September 18