By the way, I wish you a happy e Day of the Century! You might now be wondering -- hey, wasn't yesterday e Day? (Or is this February Groundhog e Day?) Actually, notice that e is 2.7182818..., and so after 2/7/18, the next four digits spell 2/8/18. So it's a double e Day of the Century, at least according to the following link:
http://www.upbeacon.com/article/2018/02/aziz-numbers-february-e
Indeed, it's well known that the first few digits of e follow a sort of pattern:
2.71828182845904523...
This makes the songs I played on Mocha using the digits of e sound interesting. Most tunes have short intervals between the notes, say a perfect fifth or narrower. But this song begins with a major sixth (from D-B, assuming 1 = C, 2 = D, and so on), and then the next eight intervals are either a seventh or a perfect octave. Such large intervals make the tune a little jumpy.
The repeating digits 45 make this part sound as F-G-(high)D-(high)E -- assuming, of course, that we treat the zero as 10 (a major tenth about the tonic C). The repeating digit pattern ends here, since 23 isn't the same as 90. But then again, 23 plays as (low)D-(low)E, which sounds nice after the high D and E in the previous bar.
Before we start the lesson, I point out that today I subbed in a middle school special ed class. Luckily, it's a math class. It's not a self-contained class, but various aides enter the class throughout the day.
I'll continue to make a "Day in the Life" post for today -- Day 98 in my new district. This one will be similar to a typical day of math, yet slightly different as it's special ed. As usual, it's improper to mention particular students or their exact disabilities on the blog, and so I won't.
8:30 -- First period, an eighth grade class, arrives. Like the other middle schools in this district, there is a rotating schedule -- it just happens to start with first period today.
I often like to play the Conjectures/"Who Am I" game in math classes, but today I'm unable to. The class is divided into three groups A/B/C, but these groups were more like Learning Centers. One group completes worksheets, the second group works with the aide on flashcards, and the third group uses Chromebooks to learn math. Every fifteen minutes the groups rotate.
On the other hand, the students are learning about functions, domain, and range. This gives me the opportunity to teach Sarah Carter's famous DIXI-ROYD mnemonic.
9:25 -- The first period students leave. It is now the teacher's conference period.
10:30 -- Third period, a seventh grade class, arrives. The students in this class are learning about solving inequalities in one variable.
11:25 -- The third period students leave and the fourth period students arrive. This is some sort of supplemental class. The students -- some of whom are in the teacher's other classes -- are assigned a worksheet on money-related work problems. These are perhaps at a slightly higher level than the ones the students worked on in the class I subbed for on Tuesday.
12:15 -- The fourth period students leave. Instead of homeroom -- which began the day at the middle school I subbed at on Monday -- this school has a "tutorial" before lunch. Students are supposed to choose a teacher whose tutorial they'll attend each day, unless they've been assigned a tutorial (for example, by a teacher who's currently giving them a D or F). They are to show me their student planners upon entry to prove that they haven't been assigned a tutorial.
12:45 -- Tutorial ends and the students go to lunch.
1:30 -- The fifth period students arrive. This is another seventh grade class.
2:20 -- The fifth period students leave and the sixth period students arrive. This is another eighth grade class.
3:10 -- The sixth period students leave and school is out -- but my day isn't over yet. This teacher also has yard duty Thursdays after school, and so I must watch the exit nearest to the classroom.
3:25 -- The students have left the campus, and now I can finally leave.
I am continuing to monitor whether I'm following my New Year's Resolutions. Once again, the first resolution on classroom management is tricky, since most of the trickiest management issues are handled by the aides. (For example, one girl in fifth period takes out her cell phone and claims that she's texting her mom in the hospital. I don't believe her, but I say nothing and let the aide deal with this issue.)
Let's look at the third New Year's Resolution in more detail:
3. Move on from past incidents instead of bringing them up with students.
This is also a tricky one. In third period, three seventh graders fail to turn in the homework -- or even produce a blank HW sheet -- and start talking loudly. I write down the names, and the aide suggests that these students receive a Saturday detention, but this doesn't deter the trio. Eventually, the aide calls the office, and security comes to escort the three out of the room.
The problem is that I continue to discuss the incident the remainder of the day. For example, I tell a pair of eighth graders in sixth period that I'm about to write their names for the teacher. One of them tells me that writing down his name means nothing to him, so I tell him about the earlier class and how three students earned Saturday school and a referral to the dean. This, therefore, constitutes a violation of the third resolution.
How should I have handled this situation? Perhaps instead of saying, "I'll write your names on the bad list" (What's a bad list?), I could have said, "I'll explain to the teacher how you acted today." In this manner, the students understand exactly what I'm about to write for the teacher. If the students persist in failing to my threat seriously, I could inform them that students whose names are left might wind up in Saturday school, without any further explanation.
I actually had a chance to look ahead to the fourth and fifth resolutions today. In first period, I spent too much time going over the homework (excessively long opening activity, too much time doing the work myself instead of the students working). After first period, I incorporate going over the HW into the Learning Centers.
Oh, and speaking of Learning Centers, this is the second time I used Learning Centers this week -- much to the dismay of the traditionalists. Of course, both classes are special ed, and Learning Centers makes sense in a special ed situation where there are aides available to assist one of the groups.
It's easy to argue that general ed classes don't need Learning Centers as special ed classes do. On the other hand, some students, like last year's special scholar, are mainstreamed into gen ed classes. It's likely that she might have benefited from Learning Centers had I used these more often last year.
Returning to Geometry, notice that I've never covered Lesson 10-6 before on the blog. This isn't exactly a filler chapter, since students indeed must remember surface area and volume formulas. It's just that students can learn all of these formulas without the benefit of Lesson 10-6. The important part is that some formulas are clearly linked -- such as the formulas for a prism and a cylinder. It's no wonder then that the text calls both of these "cylindric solids."
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