1st day back

After an incredible two week spring break spent with wonderful family and friends, it was back to California to finish my last two and a half weeks at High Tech High. I began the day in 11th grade math with Amy. They were doing a lesson on the sine and cosine curves using sketchpad, which is a computer program for geometry. It was very interesting and I took good notes because I have geometry sketchpad and it would be a good lesson to use. The lesson helped students understand that sine and cosine weren't simply mysterious numbers that the calculator spits out, but (x,y) coordinates on the unit circle. After exploring on the computer they discussed their findings and then began working on a worksheet for homework. Next, was Dan's 8th grade math class. To get the kids back into the groove, Dan planned an interesting graphing activity to refresh their knowledge on slopes and equations of lines. The experiment involved timing the number of seconds it took a certain number of people to perform the wave. Opening game for the Padres is tonight so Dan wanted to practice before the game. They timed four, then ten, then sixteen, then twenty, and then graphed the results. Time was the dependent variable and the number of people performing the wave was the independent variable because time depended on the number of people. During advisory, the students shared their spring break activities, discussed their performance at the nutritional presentations before spring break, and strategize for the advisory Olympics at the end of the year. After lunch, the students finished up the wave activity by discussing the results and answering some questions in a packet. Next I observed Ms. K's 7th grade math class. She is such a calm soul and the students obey her every request. To begin she handed out their homework for the week which consisted of a four page packet of a real life problem that they are required to write out a prediction and solution. Today they were working on writing their own equations for word problems. She did one with them and then sent them to work on their own. I was attempting to help a boy who was a little confused with whole process. I came to realize that they didn't really understand how to solve the problems which I think would make it more difficult to write their own equations. I meant to ask Ms. K about that, but didn't have a chance. For the last period of the day, I sat in Mrs. Strong's 6th grade math/science class as the students worked on their national park preservation project for the exhibition in a couple of weeks. Students are in groups of 4 and each person has a specific job with specific tasks to fulfill.