To start things off here’s Anonymous from California.
Do you try to get into a certain mindset before starting an algebra class?
I try to bring an interesting fact from science or a joke or a personal story
to start the class with. That helps to draw the students away from thier
conversations and to focus them on me and the class as a whole. The students
are ninth graders and the class is a requirement for them so adding a little
fun and interest to the class helps.
I will have reviewed their homework and will have a list of the kinds of
mistakes they are making. Often the mistakes are because they did not learn
prior material correctly or sometimes they get new material confused with old
material. If I am introducing new material then I try to predict and cut-off
in advance misconceptions and common mistakes.
The students are accustomed to starting work on a warm-up problem at the
beginning of class. If the mistakes or issues can be dealt with from the
warm-up problem I will use it. Otherwise after going over the warm-up problem
I will try to explain the mistakes and misconceptions that I had been
witnessing in the student work.
Being a student teacher, I am being observed by a senior teacher. She can be
pretty critical of my techniques and performance, so my main worries are with
how she will view my performance. She does not accept as much conversation in
the class as I might so I have to make an extra point to keep the students on
task, quiet and focused. Also she does not like more than two or three
minutes of class time spent on jokes and off topic subjects. I have to edit
my connection time to this short amount.
Do you have an example of a common mistake or misconception you try to cut-off in advance?
Quite a few of the students did not realize that when a group of variables
and numbers are being raised to a power the parentheses in the exponential
expression show the student which factors the exponent will be applied to.
Also if there is no parenthese that means that the exponent only applies to
the thing that it is superfixed above.
Some students do not think about what makes an equation an equation and not
an expression. After learning how to use completing the square to solve
quadratic equations some of them try to use completing the square to factor
rational expressions with quadratics. They should be using a diamond and box
routine to factor the quadratics because without the equal sign there is no
advantage adding numbers to be able to complete a square on a binomial.
So before the unit on completing the square I ask some students for the
difference between equations and expressions.
