Day 122: Unit 8 Assessment

I remember a day when I didn't dread giving assessments, because I had no reason to fear an altercation arising that could possible lead to a suspension. One of my classes has so many students that have completely given up (not just on geometry, but on school in general) that the thought of corralling them during a test terrifies me. 

It's constant giggling and whispering, but the administration simply says "give them a zero" for violating test procedures. Regardless of the fact that zeroes don't exist in SBG and that's a ridiculous way to treat grades, these particular students could care less about a zero. A few of these kids don't even turn the tests in! (I don't worry too much about test security because I don't think I've ever given the same test twice in the 5 years I've been teaching). 

So my only alternative is referral to the SRC (Student Responsibility Center) which involves a call home and a reinstatement meeting with me. If students are quiet and have given up, I have no recourse to ensure that I am not being measured by their scores. 

Oh well, tomorrow is spring break!

Day 121: Review

Today was basically a mop-up day as we prepare for the Unit 8 Assessment tomorrow and spring break on Friday. Students continued to work on the worksheet from yesterday, but I did spend some time ensuring that they at least saw proper setups for a few of the problems. I also handed out a brief summary of the unit so students could have a reference to help them as they create their note sheets. 

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. 

Day 119: Area of a Regular Polygon

Call me old fashioned, but I think the derivation for the area of a regular polygon formula is one of the most amazing aspects of high school level Euclidean geometry. It encompasses so much knowledge - it marks the the point when everything we've been learning finally comes together.

Which is exactly the reason why the students HATE this unit. 

Worst of all, most of the content that students need to get through this unit (as well as most of 2nd semester) came from 1st semester, and too many students have the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy when it comes to the semester breakdown. It all gets back to the fixed vs. growth mindset ideas, but SBG throws a nice wrinkle into the mix. I finally settled on just saying that students will be assumed to be proficient on ALL standards covered in 1st semester. So if you need to know how to use Pythagorean Theorem to solve for the missing side of a kite, then it's on you. I will still give a proficient score of 2 (the passing line) to students who can demonstrate the proper setup (showing that the diagonals of a kite for a right angle) even if they can't solve it. 

In any event, I work through the discovery for the area of a regular polygon (how about AoRP from now on?) on my tablet as a derivation that the students are expected to follow. By the end, they're exasperated and are hoping that there's a shortcut that I just didn't show them at first (they know that is something I would totally do). Unfortunately, the only "shortcut" (after the central angle, right triangle trig, interior triangles and multiplication) is to catch the perimeter popping out. The students are generally upset that they'll be expected to do all that work for just ONE problem. Babies. 

One pleasant surprise was how many students still have their laminated trig tables that I gave them back in 1st semester AND they have a basic memory of how to use them. Awesome!

Day 118: Catch up

I lost 2nd hour due to testing yesterday, so 5th hour went to the computer lab for independent review/practice, and I thought I'd do something 'fun' for 6th hour to intro the next unit to them. Big mistake. 

Since Unit 8 will be about polygons in general, I figured we'd give constructions with a compass another shot. I had step-by-step flash animations from mathopenref on the screen and I switched between that and a document camera showing my own construction as I went and yet it devolved into total chaos. Students immediately become distracted and talk with their neighbors which forces them to miss a key step, so they'll interrupt and ask to go back so they can see the last step, which doesn't make any sense without the explanation. And of course if I don't kowtow to their needs, they'll simply talk and act out more causing more of the class to go off track. Fun times. 

In a perfect world, I would teach the ENTIRE class with a compass. It's such an incredible tool and it's been around for thousands of years. And I'm forced to resort to the SAFE-T compass with no points because the students can't be trusted with sharp objects. I'm also down about 10 compasses since September between students breaking them or stealing them. 

Sorry, I need to complain less here, but this lesson really got under my skin. 

Day 117: Practice

Students spent the hour working on U8 WS1. 

Day 116: Exterior Angles

I did a demo of the sum of the exterior angles in a polygon, recapped the exploration from yesterday, and set students to work on the first worksheet of Unit 8. 

If you've never seen the demo, it's both simple and powerful. Draw a convex polygon on a piece of paper. Create one exterior angle at each vertex around the perimeter (be sure to work in the same direction around the exterior). Number and cut out each angle, making sure to note where the angle was on the cutout. The pieces easily reassemble into a central circle, showing the sum total to be 360. 

This could have been done as a student activity and with more shapes to emphasize the independence of the relationship, but for time considerations I simply showed other examples in Geogebra and set the students to work. 

I should note that we also pointed out how to determine the measure of a single interior or exterior angle IF the shape is regular. For some reason, this equation gave students fits for days.