8/27-8/31

This was the first full week of me being n charge of some classes for my Intern year. My host teacher has a total of 5 classes: 2 Senior-level Algebra II classes, 1 regular Algebra II, and 2 Math I-Honors courses. I am fully in charge of the Senior Algebra (SA2) classes while Mrs. Munza and I co-teach the remaining classes. I will slowly be transitioned to the front of the other classes eventually. It is difficult, however, to create lesson plans for the Math I course, as there is no Curriculum Map or even a solid textbook at this point. Hopefully the book problem will be solved by the time I take over.
    Overall, I think my Internship is going well. However, there was a small incident this past week. My SA2 students took a quiz on Wednesday on information that they should have learned in Algebra 1, in addition to the examples we did on Monday/Tuesday. However, when I graded the quizzes, the mean for both periods was a failing grade. Both my host teacher and I thought this was unacceptable and decided to let them have another chance. Thus, I decided to have a "chat" with my students on Thursday. Essentially, I let the students know that both Mrs. Munza and myself were disappointed in their grades and that we knew they could do better. We announced a re-quiz for Friday and spent the rest of the day going over their initial quizzes. I think this was a good thing to do because it had a small shock factor for the students and, after grading the re-quizzes, both classes brought the mean up to at least a D level.
    My host teacher told me to not expect extremely high grades from the students, as the SA2 class usually averages grades in the D to B range, if that high. I recognize this but I feel that, given the proper time and instruction, the majority of these students can make grades in the C to A range. Most of the students improved their scores on the re-quiz, so hopefully this will let them know that they can actually do math and succeed. I do have to remember to take the grades with a grain of salt though. Obviously, most students will do better on a quiz that is similar to one they already had, but I'm hoping the high grade trend continues. I'll probably be quizzing again next week on the next section, so we shall see. As my EDUC 200 instructor said, students only learn when they are tested on the material (or something similar to that.)