January




 * We completed chapter 9 this month. The test was given a few days after we returned from break. I had several high grades and a few low ones. The hardest topic for them seems to be remembering to shade for inequalities, and writing the equation of a line. The test was a little long, but nothing too hard.
 * We began chapter 10. The first day was difficult due to the fact that it was again, writing the equation of a line. They really have trouble with this topic. We then went into systems and most of my students and Joann's students did not realize (even after spending the entire class period on it) that solving GRAPHICALLY means that you must graph the lines!!! I stressed this point during both review days.
 * The topics of solving systems seemed to go fine. We did a lot of reviewing on what substitution means and what elimination means. The students did not seem to multiply wrong when using elimination.
 * The chapter 10 test was long. Several students did not finish on time. This could be due to the fact that they are tyring to remember how to solve systems.
 * In addition to the test being long, the students did very poorly on it. They did not properly solve the systems of equations even when given the choice on how to solve. I think this might be an area to consider expanding for a day. Time is tight for this course, but the results of this test indicate they did not understand the material. It is a popular question for the Regents exam also.
 * Chapter 11 was difficult for the students. They always feel that they understand what they are doing, then they practice factoring and get it wrong.
 * Factoring trinomials with a coefficient greater than 1 was very hard. I would like to expand this by a day and do this type of factoring on its own day instead of being combined with factoring regular trinomials.
 * This chapter was quick because there were not a lot of separate topics. I continued to inform the students that factoring does not go away after this chapter. They will need to know factoring for the rest of the course. I continuously urged them to come in and get help if needed, but as usual, not many showed.
 * The test on chapter 11 was better than chapter 10. I did not have as many failures. However, I would have liked to see scores higher than what I did see. After handing back the tests, I again urged the students to seek extra help since this was such an important topic.