Obiter Dicta

"Starting strong is good. Finishing strong is epic."

I cannot believe that we finished the second week of school! Knowing how much my students must learn in a short time makes me to set up high expectations from the beginning. I want all of them to be successful, but a good start has a different meaning for each of my students. This is why I believe that my expectations should increase in time instead of setting up from the beginning the highest level of it.

My 9th graders are from various middle schools with various expectations and teaching styles; however, they have something in common: If there are 15 minutes until the end of the class, they start packing. If everything goes beautifully for almost 80 minutes, the last 15 minutes are extremely challenging for us. It will take some time until my students will learn to use wisely the last minutes of the class; I don't give up on them.

My Geometry students took the first quiz - 14 questions in the first unit, Logic. I am extremely proud of them! The average score for the third block is 81.2, and 81.33 for the fourth block. I liked that they respected the Honor Code of RCHS. It might happen that they talk or laugh while I explain the new lesson, but they were honest in the quiz.

On Friday, my 4th block geometry students were amazing. They were totally engaged in the lesson: asking meaningful questions, answering other students' questions, and providing explanations while using a correct math vocabulary.

We studied limits on piecewise functions in the AP Calculus class. My students from this class constantly behave like my 4th block geometry students on Friday. They know my style, they know what to expect, and they know that I am an enthusiastic teacher. I appreciate that they are open to improve their critical thinking skills, and I hope they will continue being active participant in the learning process so they will be able to finish strong the AP Calculus AB course.

I stopped writing about my classes because I was so focused on my students' progress. There were six intense weeks before my students took their EOC test. I had to cover in a short time the entire content, and they needed time for mixed review lessons. They worked hard for their goals. Their scores were amazing!!! I am extremely proud of them!!! I wish them all the best in the world!

A few days ago, we started the 2022-2023 school year. In the first semester, I teach two classes of Honors Geometry, and one class of AP Calculus AB. In the second semester, I will teach Honors Algebra II, and AP Calculus AB.

Like many other school year beginnings, this one was also an intense one.

My Geometry students are 9th graders. I hope that their transition from middle school to high school will be a smooth one. Most of them are open minded to my rules and expectations. There are three 9th graders who really try of not following the RCHS rules: being late to the morning meeting and to class, disturbing the lesson, and trying to stay unauthorized on their phone. However, this was the first week of school. They will learn and accept our school culture, and they will be proud of being students at RCHS.

The first unit, Logic, seems pretty easy to them. I like that they are engaged in the lesson, most of them are listening with interest, and they are so enthusiastic when they are answering correctly a problem. It is so much positive energy in their enthusiasm!!! Tuesday we will practice on the reasoning lesson: law of contrapositive, law of detachment, law of syllogism, and counterexample. On Google Classroom, under the unit Logic, I posted a material named The Booklet; so they can practice on G1b, and G1c.

AP Calculus AB class will be a challenging one. I setup a pacing, and I hope that I will be able to follow it. I will need my students' help. I hope they have increased their writing speed since their last year with me, and I hope they are more organized, disciplined, and committed. I trust that if we will work as a team, then they will be successful.

I wish a happy and successful school year to all of my students and their parents!

RPS Interim Test!!!! I shouldn't have been so pessimistic about my students' performance in this test. They performed very well.

In my Algebra II class, 41 students out of 42 took the test. The average score is 83.41; the first block: 84.71; the fourth block: 82.5; number of students with perfect score: 5. Based on their scores, the test was too easy for them. The consequence of having an easy test is that they will stop working. If the average would have been between 60-70, then they would continue being motivated. I am extremely proud of them and I hope that I am wrong by stating that they will not study with the same enthusiasm. This week we studied radical expressions, equations, and functions. writing an expression in the simplest radical form represented the most challenging topic. We will continue practicing because they are not confident in this matter.

All my Geometry students took the test. Their average is not so impressive: 58.3. We went through the test, and the good news is that they made mistakes that we were able to fix pretty quickly. My Geometry students want to solve everything just by looking at the screen. They are not using the provided tools, they are solving the problems on the scratch paper, and most of them are not using Desmos. We have so much to work on developing good problem solving skills. In the class we covered the unit of Congruent Triangles. They recognize the theorem that can be used to prove that two triangles are congruent, but they give up on multi-step problems.

During this week, we practiced for the first interim test. So my students chose to have some bad days when they did not cooperate at all. My Geometry students chose that day for Tuesday, first block Algebra II students chose Wednesday, and the last block Algebra II students chose Thursday. I have seen this pattern many times before a test. Instead of focusing more and working more consistently, they choose of not cooperating and not practicing. I feel that they give up too easily, and they do not have high expectations from themselves. I must find some strategies to change this mindset.

In Algebra II class my students have learned about factorization: greatest common factor, the factor theorem, difference of squares, difference and sum of cubes, the sum and product strategy. My Geometry students learned about triangle inequalities. We will practice on these topics. We need to. I have to motivate them to do more work at home.

Let's get ready for the interim test!

Busy week: quizzes, new content, and a lot of work to do … every single day. Friday: 2-hour early dismissal. If last week I mentioned that I am not a big fan of day off, I am definitely a huge one of 2-hour early dismissals. The reason is that 55-58 minutes is the perfect amount of time for students in a math class. Most of them are engaged during the entire lesson.

My Algebra II students had to take two quizzes; one in absolute value, and the other one in complex numbers. After every quiz, I make an analysis of their answers, which helps me to determine their strengths and weaknesses for a unit. It is a time consuming process; however, it is extremely efficient. I like analyzing my students' responses especially on quizzes and tests created by me. In multiple choice questions, I include answer options with mistakes made in the class. In this way, I can see whether they are persisting in the mistake or they were able to fix it in time. There were few incorrect answers in both quizzes, but there can easily be fixed. One of the mistakes was choosing the imaginary part of the complex number (-7-5i)^2. Instead of choosing 70, some of them chose 70i, although they raised correctly to the second power, and combined like terms. We went through the mistakes in the class. We also talked about quadratic equations over the set of complex numbers, quadratic functions, and polynomial functions. They are doing much better in analyzing the characteristics of the graph of a function.

In Geometry, we finished the coordinate geometry unit and the construction unit. My students took the coordinate geometry quiz. I haven't yet graded their papers, but I will do Monday morning, so they will have their scores at the beginning of the class. They were complaining about the quiz because I asked them to show their work, and they would have liked multiple choice problems. They will continue being disappointed because I will continue with quizzes in which they must show their work. I have to see how they think. They do not cooperate mathematically, so requiring reasoning explanations will help them to gain the confidence they need to present in front of their colleagues. After a rough start in the construction unit (no compasses, rulers), they were doing very well on Friday while we were practicing on the booklet. I like that they submit the homework on time, and they strive to get good grades. The homework is usually assigned through Quizziz, and I setup the option that allows them to take the test as many time as they want.

Monday, February 21st - President's Day. No school. I like having a day off, although is always difficult to get my students reactivated after a long weekend. This is the reason why I don't like one-day interruption of the instructional activities. Tuesday was challenging. I am not talking about discipline problems. Most of my students know how to behave in my class. It was about their low level of enthusiasm. No answers. No opinions. They were so tempted in using their phones for non-academic reasons. Wednesday was different. I got them back.

In Algebra II, my students took the Linear Functions quiz (10 students with perfect scores), then we talked about absolute value equations, inequalities, and functions. My students are pretty confident in using Desmos for solving equations and inequalities. I like that many of them are solving algebraically. Developing these skills will help them in performing well on non-calculator sections on the SAT and/or ACT tests.

My Geometry students took the Parallel Lines and Angles quiz. Although their was no perfect score, most of them were able to write the correct equation based on the relationship between angles in order to prove that lines are parallel. Some of them were still guessing those equations. We use the a-b strategy and we practice as much as possible in recognizing the name of the given pairs of angles. After the quiz, they have learned about the midpoint formula, the distance formula, the slope of parallel and perpendicular lines, and transformations (rigid and non-rigid transformations). I have not noticed any danger in not understanding the coordinate geometry content. I just hope that they will practice so they will not forget. I must emphasize the importance of practicing on IXL.

The same enthusiasm of the first week, although it is getting tougher. Our common goal ( yes, OUR goal) is learning the lesson in the class. My students like the activities that I created using Google Drawings. It seems that they are motivated to understand everything very well so they are engaged in every activity so far.

My 9th graders started getting used with my teaching style. I love they flexible mindset in accepting my specific style. I believe they trust me. I can be thankful for my 10th graders because their positive behavior is followed by the 9th graders. My 10th graders were last year in my Geometry class, and they are so willing to collaborate with me and with other students.

In Algebra II, we studied characteristics of linear functions: domain, range, continuity (also point discontinuity, jump discontinuity, and infinite discontinuity), end behavior, increasing, decreasing behavior, intercepts, absolute and relative extrema. It was a little bit challenging to identify the domain and the range of a function if the graph is given. It was helpful for them to analyze the graphs of piecewise functions. They understood pretty quickly that a function increases, decreases, or it is constant on an interval form the x-axis; although at the beginning they were reading the interval on the y-axis.

In Geometry, we studied about angles, lines and transversals, and relationships between the angles formed by lines cut by a transversal. They know to recognize alternate interior angles, alternate exterior angles, same side (consecutive) interior angles, same side (consecutive) exterior angles, vertical angles, angles around a point, angles on a straight line. We started working on some high level questions, and I appreciate that they were interested in those problems.

Next week, they will take the second quiz from this semester. I hope they will be successful.

New semester. New classes. New students. First opinion: they are amazing! I just love every day of school! Almost all of my second semester students are interested in learning the new content. I love their enthusiasm!

During the first week, my Algebra II students got familiarized with the concept of interval. They know the difference between bounded and unbounded intervals, open and closed intervals. They learned to perform operations with intervals (union and intersection). My Geometry students enjoyed the Logic unit. They performed operations with statements (conjunctions, disjunction, and negation), and they wrote the converse, inverse, and contrapositive of a conditional statement. It was challenging to understand the difference between a valid statement and a true one.

Beautiful first week!