Confessions of a Student Teacher: Part 15

It is hard to imagine that the amount of postings will be reduced within the next week. Next week it is the season finale of "Confessions of a Student Teacher". Well, it isn't over yet and I still have to talk about this week. I'll save all of the sad stuff for next week. I won't be doing much because I have to give back the classroom and I go back to the boring observation phase. For now, I am going to really enjoy being with my students.

This week was actually a normal week. There were no half days and we are back to teaching three days, one review day, and one test day. What made the difference was what we were teaching. For most of you that remember some form of math, we were teaching slope-intercept form. Here is an example:

First, the students were given the equation 3x+4y=12. They were asked to put that equation in slope-intercept form which is y=mx+b. In order to do so they had to move the 3x over to the other side by subtracting and then divide both sides by four. Try it yourself! The answer would be y= (-3/4)x +3.

For some reason they couldn't grasp the concept that well. It was all really difficult for them and really stressful for me. How many ways can you explain how to do it? (If you have any suggestions feel free to ask). I was told that it is the hardest concept in the 8th grade to teach to students and to not worry too much about it. The concept is not on the final but it is good to give them a preview of what they will find in high school. Even my teacher has a hard time teaching it... much less a brand new teacher. Anyway, that was the largest part of my week. Everything else was pretty normal. I have one more day of teaching (Monday) because I have my final observation and then I go back into the observation mode. There are a few things that I plan on doing next week. I am going to copy some cool worksheets and work on a cool math bulletin board. Oh! If you have any suggestions for the bulletin board then let me know. I want it to be versatile so that way it can stay up all year long.