Today in PLC time I was paired up with Kristen to help the students who needed more instruction with both exponential notation and scientific notation. Nick was in this class, while Penny was receiving help with scientific notation, and Adam was in the "all set" group that worked on math extension problems.
I really liked how Kristen explained exponential notation - you have the base and the exponent. For the example 53, 5 is the base and 3 is the exponent.
The exponent tells us how many times we are going to multiply a number by itself - for this example, 3 times:
___ x ___ x ___
The base tells us the number that is going to be multiplied (placed in the lines drawn above):
5 x 5 x 5 = 53
I saw a lot of lights go on with this definition.
She had the students complete the following problems:
1-3 change into exponential notation, 4-6 change into expanded notation:
1.) 5 x 5 x 5 =
2.) 7 x 7 =
3.) 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 =
4.) 74 =
5.) 32 =
6.) 105 =
I looked at Nick's paper as he was working on it. For the first problem, he was trying to solve the answer - Ms. Conrad corrected her directions to the whole class - they were not to solve for the answer, but to write in exponential notation. Nick was grateful for the clarification and said, "Oh- ok! I can do that!" He quickly solved the answers - I checked his paper and he got all of them correct. I congratulated him and he replied by saying, "you know, Miss. Donahue, I knew how to do this - it's just that on that paper that we did on Monday I didn't know what the questions were asking me to do."
Nick's clarification was a significant one - the questions on Monday's assessment was term heavy. The directions asked students to complete tasks using expanded, exponential, and scientific notation, without examples for each of the tasks. Though it is important for students to know the terms - particularly because they need to recognize and recall mathematical terms on the MTEL - I think that we need to do a better job conveying this importance to the students. Or at the very least, repeating the terms over and over and over again so that they are drilled into the students' memories.
After PLC time, I caught up with Penny - she was in the scientific notation group. I asked her how she was feeling about scientific notation and she said, "I feel beautiful!" Well, that's confidence if I've ever heard it!
In math, we continued to work on Order of Operations. Maura asked me to continue working on the SmartBoard with students who felt like they needed more practice. The students self selected if they wanted to join me in the meeting area for more help. Penny and Nick joined me in the meeting area. I really like that they made that choice on their own! We continued to work on order of operation problems, and after one problem, Penny felt confident and moved back to her seat to work on the remaining problems by herself. It seems like she just needed a refresher from yesterday.
Nick on the other hand was having a harder time following the order of operations. He stayed at the front of the room for two full problems. Maura wanted to move on to the new topic for the day - word problems - so she sent me into the hall with the students who needed to continue with order of operations. Nick was in this small group. We worked on three more problems together, and after each problem I asked the students to give me a thumbs up, thumbs to the side, or thumbs down - to reflect their understanding/confidence with order of operations. Nick went from thumbs down after the first problem, to thumbs to the side after the second problem, to thumbs somewhere between to the side and up after the third problem. I think with another problem or two he would have felt more confident, but the period ended. I did offer the students the opportunity to come to the classroom at 8:00 am any day of the week for help with math. The students seemed thankful for the offer - we'll see if any of them show up. This is now the second time that I offered Nick the opportunity to come into school early for extended help - I do hope that he takes me up on the offer!
After school I fought with the color copier for a while, then resigned to just print off the art work at Staples.
I stopped over at BC to see CM and her new baby. He is just so cute! It was great to catch up with her and to see her family in action together. It's such hard work to raise children - but it still seems like it's worth it!
I met my friend Deb out for dinner at our favorite restaurant - Sel De La Terre. Of course, every bite was amazing! It was great to catch up with Deb - her class is going really well and she had some great advice for me for take over week.
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