Because of the later start, we also lost all of our days off between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. That was rough. Even with two days off for a conference and a personal day after a half marathon, I was really close to feeling burnt out. One of the greatest gifts of the MTBoS community is a mutual understanding of how difficult teaching is, especially at certain times of the year. I really appreciate being able to have someone else who is totally outside my circumstances also say, "Yes, this is a tough week. It will get better." Because then I realize that my annoyance isn't my students, co-workers, or school, it's just a rough time of year. And it will pass.
Teaching four different classes is harder than I expected. Mostly because I have three single sections, and I often leave them thinking about how I'd do something differently next time. Only to realize that "next time" is next year, if that. It's hard to try to grow when I don't get another chance in the immediate future. It's overwhelming to make sure that I have everything ready for each class every day when there are so many moving pieces. There are certainly been some panicked moments when I realize that I didn't actually make the copies I needed for my next class.
Algebra -
This has been the constant in my career. I've always taught algebra - although the look of my class has changed entirely over the years. It's still evolving. This year has been a real struggle. I like to think that my class is more fun than most other math classes they've taken. I don't really lecture, we do tasks like Barbie Bungee, and have a lot of good discussions based around Estimation 180, Which One Doesn't Belong, and the like. However, motivating this group has been a challenge, more so than in the previous few years. I'm growing curious about having a classroom structure without homework. The value seems to be less than ever. I always felt like that practice would be key to students finally mastering skills like evaluating expressions when the value of the variable is negative or solving a system of equations. It sounds depressing, but I've become skeptical that some will ever master these skills (and whether it's really that important).
Geometry -
My experience with these students has been key to my questioning of homework. Because of my disappointment with the online portion of our new book, I stopped assigning homework after unit 1. It was clear in unit 2 that our conversations were not sufficient, and they needed some real practice. So we started with Delta Math in unit 3 but really only in class. I taught half of them last year in algebra so it's enlightening to continue along with them and be able to recognize what they have retained. I know that factoring has been a struggle over the years, so I think I'm going to start doing some regular practice with factoring as a warm up as we move into the second semester. We spent almost our entire congruent triangle unit doing proofs - which, to my surprise, they loved! I don't love geometry, but this particular group has been really fun to move through the concepts with.
Calculus -
I've heard for so long that conceptual based, exploratory learning may work in algebra, but there's no way to do it in higher level math. Calc honors has been my chance to prove that wrong, and it's been better than I ever expected. Because it's honors and not our AP class, my students typically have weaker algebra skills and we explore the calculus topics from a higher level. I can't count the number of times that we've done a Desmos activity, and, when we've turned our attention to notes, they look at me like I'm an idiot when I try to explain the concept to them. Because it's completely unnecessary at that point. They've already figured it all out through Desmos. This is truly the class where I wish I had a second opportunity and more time to develop tasks. Last week we started curve sketching, and I was completely blown away that they could match graphs of f and f' without any direct instruction. It was just something I offered to them as a quick intro after we finished our test. I've been using materials from the teacher who taught the class the past two years (because I have four preps) with a bunch of Desmos tasks and problem sets from Jonathan thrown in. We don't do e, ln, log, inverse trig, etc. But I'm curious about whether that might be something worthwhile to include moving forward.
Social Justice
This is my non-math class, obviously. We use a text from St. Mary's Press, but I'm thinking about going open source in the next semester/year. The book we use the most is just selected readings...and most of them are available online for free anyway. I would just need to curate them. To be honest, it would probably be easier than using the book for the simple fact that online access to this text is a 12 step process. Clicking a link would take two seconds opposed to the five minute sign in. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the course. It's a nice change of pace from math. And I have about four girls in both social justice and calc (on opposite days) so it's fun to do such different things with the same kids. We have well rounded lives, you know?
The Thanksgiving break has been a good one. Sleeping in, relaxing at Disney, shopping for the upcoming trip to Iceland, and catching up on school work/reflecting on my classes thus far. It was a much needed break as we gear up for the four week sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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