But ever since my failure to teach science at the old charter school, I like to look at what real science classes are teaching. The continuation students are all officially enrolled in different classes (some called "Earth Science," others called "Integrated Science"), but today, the regular teacher is having them all follow the same emergency lesson plan.
They are to watch a National Geographic video on "Ocean Drifters" -- various invertebrates who live in the sea -- and answer a few fill-in-the-blank questions based on video quotes. It's possible that I could have shown a video like this to my seventh graders that year for life science. It might also have fit the sixth grade curriculum -- as that was the year of transition from "earth science" (old CA standards) to "integrated science" (new NGSS standards).
Most of the problems occur in first and especially fifth periods. This is probably because the other classes had more mature seniors, while first and fifth are mostly sophomores with a few juniors. In first period, some students refuse to answer the questions. But this is taken to another level in the fifth period class.
Once again there may be a domino effect of bad behavior, so let me start from the top. Sometimes I turn off all the lights when watching videos, but this time I want to leave one set of lights on so that the students can see their papers. But then students complain, saying that there's enough daylight coming in from between the blinds that they can still see their papers.
Meanwhile, this is a 53-minute video for a 55-minute class, so there's very little time for anything else, including attendance. I decide to take one minute at the start of class for passing out papers and one minute at the end for collecting them. I tell the students that I'll take attendance by collecting the worksheets and matching the names on the papers to the names on the roster. Not only does this save time (recall my goal "avoid lengthy warm-ups"), but it also allows me to match student names to student misbehavior. If a student acts out, I don't know his or her name -- but when I collect the papers, I can see whose paper is blank. Most likely, the misbehaving student has a blank paper -- but that student most likely wouldn't turn in the paper at all unless I force him/her to, by telling the students that the papers count as attendance.
As the video begins, some students sit at desks while others sit at lab stations, since there is no real seating chart. In all classes, the students at lab stations are worse-behaved than those at desks -- especially in fifth period. One group at a lab station takes the papers on which they're supposed to be writing notes and crumples them up. Then they pour water on the papers (from the lab station) and throw them at each other as spitballs!
I remind the students that the papers count as their attendance, and so if they don't turn them in, they are at risk of being marked absent. But then one guy -- who, by the way, isn't throwing spitballs and in fact actually has notes on his paper -- complains that this isn't fair. And by "complain," I mean use the F-word. He tells me that it's wrong for me to mark people absent just because they don't turn in the paper (even though he's not in danger of being marked absent).
There are several things going on here. First of all, I think back to Harry Wong, who gives new teachers some handy classroom management tips in his book. Wong recommends that teacher's don't take attendance out loud, since this is an error-prone process. It also leads to arguments, such as "That student isn't absent -- he's just in the office!" and so on.
Wong writes that if there's a seating chart, it should be used to take attendance. But this makes an assumption -- that the students are actually sitting in their assigned seats. Many times, students intentionally sit at wrong seats for subs. Since I don't have a seating chart today, I take attendance using worksheets. But this also makes an assumption -- that all of the students will actually turn the assignment in. I've tried this successfully on test days, since even the laziest students will still turn in a test. It doesn't work though for regular assignments.
For both forms of silent attendance (seating chart and submitted work), the students don't like it because they want to break the rules -- but instead of changing their behavior, they tell me that I am wrong to do anything other than oral attendance, no matter how much Wong advises against it.
If I were to say that they are misbehaving and that I'm not wrong to punish them, they could easily counter that it's wrong to mark someone absent as a punishment. In other words, I must find another way to punish them. (But once again, I'm not necessarily trying to mark students absent per se -- I'm just trying to figure out their names!)
In the end, I decide to avoid further argument by pausing the video to take oral attendance. This is because I want to focus on catching the spitball throwers, not argue about attendance. Also, one student keeps playing games on his phone, and so I must write yet another office referral. (I don't know his name at first -- yet eventually I figure it out because ironically, he actually has a paper to turn in, unlike the spitball throwers!) Finally, I compare the students who turn in papers to the list of students based on the oral attendance, and assume that anyone missing is throwing spitballs -- those names I write on a bad list for the teacher.
But I wonder whether the whole incident could have been avoided if I had simply turned off the lights before the video. Many students seem to enjoy turning off classroom lights. On one hand, for some students, the only thing enjoyable about watching an educational video is the fact that they get to do it in a dark classroom. On the other, some students enjoy the opportunity for mischief afforded to them by a dark classroom.
Thus, there's a 50-50 chance that if I'd turned off the lights, they would have appreciated it and actually completed the assignment. The other side of that 50-50 chance is that they might have used the darkness to throw more spitballs.
There's no way to know what would have happened if I'd at least bargained with the students today and tell them that I'll turn off the lights if they do their work -- but as soon as they goof off, the lights go right back on. If the students start working in the dark, then the problems with attendance and not turning in papers never even arises, since all the students would have a paper to turn in.
By the way, I once tried this attendance method in another class -- this was at a continuation school in another district. I believe that it worked for the most part -- a few students had no intention of doing the work, but turned it in once I tied it to attendance. But one girl refused to work -- and like the guy from today, she continued to argue that attendance should be independent of completed work.
There were no F-bombs from that girl that day, but it's easy to see why today's guy would be much more upset over that attendance method. On Mondays at this school, those with perfect attendance get to go home early -- around 12:50 instead of 1:05. (Thus my carefully planned 1 min./53 min/1 min. schedule doesn't work in fifth period anyway!) So if I mark a student absent due to not turning in a paper, then that student won't go home early next Monday (after winter break). This gives today's students more reason to be anxious about my method of taking attendance.
Notice that my attendance method caused no problems in periods 1-4. Even in first period, when some students don't want to work, they write their name and period and answer Question #1 only on the worksheet so that they have something to turn in, and attendance is accurate. But this reveals another flaw with my classroom management -- if something works in the early periods, I refuse to change it for later periods even if it's no longer working.
As it turns out, one student in fifth period apparently didn't have perfect attendance last week, and so he has to stay in my classroom. By this point I stop the video and just read him the answers to the remaining questions. This student is sitting in the spitball section of the room, so originally he wouldn't have had a completed paper to turn in until I help him. How ironic is that -- after I'd threatened to mark kids absent for not doing the work, the one student who doesn't have perfect attendance ends up doing the work.
By the way, another important idea from Wong is the idea of procedures -- regular routines that make the class run more smoothly. The problem occurs when I, as a sub, try to introduce a procedure with which the students aren't familiar. Collecting papers and using the names on the papers to take attendance is an unfamiliar procedure. Last Friday, one girl completed her assignment but didn't want to show it to me or turn it in to the box immediately, because those are also unfamiliar procedures. I point out that unfamiliar procedures often lead to arguments, where the students tell me that they shouldn't have to follow those procedures.
(Actually, the same thing happens when a regular teacher tries to introduce new procedures at the start of the year. The difference is that the students have several days to adjust to the new procedure, whereas that's not the case when I'm subbing.)
Today our Chapter 8 weirdness begins. The change in the district calendar requires that we cover Lessons 8-1 and 8-2 before the final. Chapter 8 is a tough chapter, but fortunately, these first two lessons are relatively easy.
Last year, we began the second semester with Lesson 8-4, and so we didn't cover 8-1 and 8-2. And two years ago, I was working at the old charter school, so we didn't use the U of Chicago text. (The topics for these two lessons actually do appear in the Common Core Standards for middle school math, but due to jumping around in the Illinois State text, I don't think I actually covered them that year either.)
Thus we must go back three years to the last time we covered Lessons 8-1 and 8-2. Back then, this was before I started following the digit pattern, and so we studied the chapters out of order. That year I intentionally saved Chapter 8 for March 2016, since a major topic in Chapter 8 is pi, and Pi Day is in March.
Nowadays, we study Chapter 8 in January, and so the pi lesson no longer falls on Pi Day. And now we must study the first two lessons of Chapter 8 in December.
Of course, even though we're studying Lesson 8-1 today, this doesn't mean that students shouldn't still be preparing for the final. The worksheets I provided at the end of last week should provide sufficient preparation for the big test.
This is what I wrote three years ago about today's lesson. Of course, I had to modify what I wrote back then to reflect how I'm teaching the material now.
We now proceed in the U of Chicago text with Chapter 8, which is on measurement formulas -- such as those for perimeter and area. Recall the distinction between metric geometry, or geometry with measurements, with non-metric geometry without measurements. Well, we are definitely in the metric chapters right now. I saved the harder metric geometry until now, since the measurement formulas are notoriously difficult to remember.
Here is my plan for Chapter 8:
Today, December 17th -- Lesson 8-1: Perimeter Formulas
Tomorrow, December 18th -- Lesson 8-2: Tiling the Plane
Wednesday-Friday, December 19th-21st -- Finals Week
Monday-Monday, December 24th-January 7th -- Winter Break
Tuesday, January 8th -- Lesson 8-6: Areas of Trapezoids
Wednesday, January 9th -- Lesson 8-7: The Pythagorean Theorem
Thursday, January 10th -- Lesson 8-8: Arc Measure and Arc Length
Friday, January 11th -- Lesson 8-9: The Area of a Circle (plus Activity)
Monday, January 14th -- Chapter 8 Test
Notice that Lessons 8-3 through 8-5 have been omitted. Of these, the most important lesson is 8-5, on the areas of triangles. I'll find a way to squeeze this lesson in after winter break.
Three years ago, I wrote more about how my pi lessons would be set up for Pi Day. This year, the pi lessons won't fall on Pi Day. But there is still an activity day in this plan, which allows me to preserve some of the old Pi Day activities this year.
My pi lessons will be based on the lessons of Drs. Franklin Mason and Hung-Hsi Wu. Wu discusses how to estimate the area of the unit disk by placing it on a rectangular grid -- essentially using the areas of the rectangles to approximate the area of the circle.
Notice that this is basically what happens in Lesson 8-4 of the U of Chicago text! In this section, square grids are used to approximate the areas of irregular regions -- most of these are either lakes or, eventually, triangles, in anticipation of Lesson 8-5. I'm very surprised that the U of Chicago doesn't place a circle on one of the grids to approximate its area! And since Lesson 8-4 is one of the skipped lessons this year, following the Wu lesson could allow us to squeeze Lesson 8-4 in after all.
But that's enough about pi -- let's get to today's Geometry lesson. Lesson 8-1 of the U of Chicago text is on perimeter formulas. But this is so straightforward that there's nothing much to say -- which is why I felt that I could waste most of this post discussing pi lessons. There is only one definition in this section:
Definition:
The perimeter of a polygon is the sum of the lengths of its sides.
And then there's only one formula. Notice that this is the first of several times that the important word "formula" appears in Chapters 8 through 10:
Equilateral Polygon Perimeter Formula:
In an equilateral polygon with n sides of length s, the perimeter p = ns.
Notice that the formula is stated for equilateral polygons. All regular polygons are equilateral, but not all equilateral polygons are regular. The text points out that a rhombus is an equilateral quadrilateral, but it isn't regular unless it's a square. Of course, all equilateral triangles are regular. The formula is stated for equilateral polygons because we don't care whether the angles are congruent or not -- all that matters is the congruence of the sides.
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