Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Day 120: Examples & Practice

I have adjusted my approach somewhat since September in that now I will do more examples for the class before we begin a worksheet. My rationale had always been that if I ensure that the class is properly suited, that I shouldn't need to show them how to do a problem. The constant hand-holding in high school is something that really bugs me. Additionally, I've learned through trial & error that the students will never be satisfied. Don't do any examples and they'll be upset. Do some examples, and they'll simply postpone getting upset until they encounter a problem that doesn't look like the ones you showed them how to do. Show them those and they'll just get upset on the quiz that looks different still. 

Even more frustrating through all this is how many students use this experience as fuel for their negative opinions of me (that's not a guess, I've spoken with some students and given evaluations across my classes). It's about more than what they *want* school to look like, it's sad to see that they think this is what school *should* look like. "Show me how to do X, I'll do X in front of you, tomorrow I'll do X on a quiz, next week I'll do X again on a test, and in a few months I'll do X on the final." 

But what about Y & Z?

Anyway, after another example of AoRP, this time given the apothem and solving for the side length, the students worked on U8 WS2. 

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