Monday, April 13th

Today I gave a pre-test for our new Biggest Gainer unit. So, I guess I now need to describe what the "Biggest Gainer" is. The Biggest Gainer is a program here at Western Middle School that the math department uses to help our students review for the CATS standardized test. It is quite simple in idea. It goes through 2-week cycles. In week 1, students start by taking a "Pre-Test" over a unit that they learned this year. The pre-test helps us see where students are lacking in skills within a particular area. For example, today we took a pre-test on the unit "Fractions, Decimals, and Percents." The pre-tests are similar questions to the CCAs that the students have taken. We then spend the next 2 weeks (about 20-30 minutes a day) reviewing material that is similar to what was on the pre-test. At the end of the 2 week cycle, we take a post test. The post test is similar to the pre-test, and it allows us to see how much a student has improved. It also allows us to see the index of that student (ie, Distinguished, Apprentice Medium, etc.) Students who get a proficient or distinguished along with the top 10 Biggest Gainers (ie, jumped from a Novice High on the pre-test to an Apprentice High on the post-test) get rewarded for their work.

Anyway, here is how the day's lesson went:

1. Sponge.
2. Finish Problem 1.2 in our Filling and Wrapping books. This is a CMP 2 book that focuses on surface area and volume.
3. Start Section 1.3 in our Filling and Wrapping books.
4. Spent the last 30 minutes of class taking a Biggest Gainer pre-test on Fractions, Decimals, and Percents.

There were a couple challenges with today's lesson. First of all, our unit in our Filling and Wrapping book is very hands on. This is both good and bad. It is good because students are often very engaged, but it is also bad because they can easily be gotten off target with so much more independent work. Thus, today in Problem 1.3, I passed out scissors and let students cut out shapes. They then had to fold these shapes up into three-dimensional rectangular prisms and find the surface area of these prisms. Overall, the activity went well, but it did have a few problems. First of all, quite a few students became disengaged and wanted to spend more time talking to their friends than actually doing the work. Secondly, all of the cutting left my room an absolute dirty mess, and this embarassed me. I really need to get a broom in my room so I can sweep up the trash!

Overall, the pre-test went fine. The results of the pre-test showed, however, that these students need quite a bit of reinforcement when it comes to converting between fractions, decimals, and percents. Luckily, the Biggest Gainer allows us to review that material now!