#SundayFunday Observe Yourself

I'm nearly caught-up with the #SundayFunday challenges.  Last week's challenge was to observe yourself.  Here is more info if you'd like to join in the fun.

I actually had a coworker record a lesson for me recently, I had not yet made the time to watch it and reflect.  This prompt gave the extra push that I needed.

My lesson started with Which One Doesn't Belong warm-up.  This is one of my favorite style of warm-up.  All four images have a reason that it is different from the others.  This allows for all students to participate at various levels.  It is a perfect example of a low floor high ceiling task.  The warm-up provided a chance for students to practice using vocabulary like vertex, opening direction, parabola, discriminant, and axis of symmetry.  When students describe these features without using the appropriate vocab, I prompt them for it and it is reaffirmed with everyone.

Prior to this lesson, my algebra 2 students had already studied writing, graphing, and solving quadratic functions in several forms.  The new portion of this lesson was the concept of applying these skills to word problems.

After the warm-up, we broke into 3 stations.  I have written often about using stations and it is still one of my goto instructional models.  I love the chance for small group instruction for remediation and enrichment.  I also love the daily routine of expecting students to work both independently and collaboratively at some point during the period.

During this lesson, the first small group needed some additional practice with using the quadratic formula.  I try to use a lot of leading questions when students pose a question to me or ask for help.  In most cases, this is successful, but some students can get frustrated when I don't immediately provide an answer.  My goal is to demonstrate the internal dialogue that they should eventually be having with themselves when they get stuck on a problem.

At the independent station, students worked on applying their quadratic function skills to word problems.  I also have a long term assignment of working on Khan Academy for early finishers.  This is the station where my students struggle the most every year.  I have found that providing a notes packet has helped my students.  I wish that they did not need it and that that they could instead take notes in a notebook or in a google doc, but my students have not had success with either of those options.  For this particular lesson, I used a video from Mathispower4u.  His videos are quite good and my students have reported that they like to have videos created by someone other than me so that they hear a different explanation than the one that I already gave in class during whole group instruction.

Finally, at the collaborative station, I assigned a Desmos activity where students looked for patterns in the transformational form of a quadratic and how the graph changes with the a, h, and k values of the formula.  This was a little unusual in that I'm more likely to assign a card sort or some other paper and pencil activity at this station.  However, you can not beat Desmos sliders for studying transformations :)

Overall, I was pleased with the lesson and it is a good example of the daily routine in my class.  I hope you enjoyed the sneak peek at my room and I look forward to seeing what you all are doing too.