T1 W7-8 1E2

This class is currently learning Percentages. Most had done quite well in the previous 3 chapters' tests. As Percentage was covered in their Primary 6 syllabus, I was able to go quite fast with them. Just a few students had to be hand-held to do a few of the Try It! questions. I should be able to finish teaching the whole Chapter in the next lesson and also start on the next chapter which is Data Handling, and have them sit for a test, before they go for their OLE 1 in Week 10. In the weeks that I have taught them I discovered that they are intelligent (therefore I should stretch them further to raise their Maths ability), most are enthusiastic and eager to answer and show their working on the board while the quite ones sit and do their work quietly (I should ensure that everyone has a chance to answer and make the quiet ones present their answers more and perhaps increase their self-esteem?), they are hardworking ( i gave them a lot of homework questions and so far most have given me very satisfactory work on time. I just need to work on one student who forgets to bring his homework a lot and seems lost in class- I have already talked to the Form teacher and she has agreed to change his back seat to one in the front). Let's hope that with SMAPP in Term 2, I will be able to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses and hence how to help them in the future.

T1 W7-8 4E1

For the past two weeks, I have been teaching this class the topic of Cumulative Frequency Distribution. As a change, for the first lesson, I had given the class an overview on what to expect for in this chapter. I showed them my own drawing of the cumulative frequency curves and told them that I expect their curves to be as good as mine and for the past few sessions, almost all of their curves were as good as mine which I find awesome. I know that most of the students do not like drawing graphs but students do meet up to our expectations if we show that we believe in them. Only some have difficulty (need more practice of course). After the first assignment was marked, I reviewed the mistakes with the class. Some had to be called to the teacher's table to be given a stern reminder for showing 'poor attitude'. I have decided to change the seating arrangement as a few of them were not learning from their chosen seating partners. They will only get to change back if they show an improvement in their homework assignments. We have one more subtopic to go before closing the chapter on Cumulative frequency- box and whiskers plot. Most probably after reviewing the chapter and going through 2008 'O' level question on this chapter next week, the class should be ready for a test on Thursday. I am determined to make sure everybody pass this test as it is a definite question in the O level. If this Chapter is mastered now, they will have one less Chapter to revise for the 'O' level.

T1 W7-8 5N1

Three 'new' students joined the class. It was unfortunate that they had come in when the class was supposed to sit for their Test on Matrices. Everyone passed the test (including the three students) except for one student. In overall the students agreed that they were careless in their multiplication of the elements, forgot that when a matrix is squared, it means it needs to be multiplied to itself again and not have each element squared. ..We also started on a new topic- Set Language and Notation. As was done previously at the start of the topic, students were given some time to read their textbooks and find out the answers to my questions that were written on the whiteboard. The students were very focused and managed to get the right answers. I think that we have made the correct choice of using Discovering Mathematics for the NA classes in the upper secondary as the Try It! questions lets them practice on the new concepts that they have learnt straight away. I think another thing that made the students of this class focused in their learning was that they know what I was going to do for that entire period. For this class I dedicated the top right hand corner of the Whiteboard to my plan for the day. For example, on last Friday I had these written on that corner. 1) review the topic 2) give homework questions 3) test on next Wednesday? 4) 2008 'O' level question 5) 2007 Specimen paper question. As they had only 20 mins left (they had come late from their D&T and F&N lessons), the students were focused and I was able to do 4 out of the 5. The specimen question will be done on our next lesson. I feel that if we are focused in what we are going to do with the class, the students will be cooperative and will be focused and thus no problems in classroom management. Im very sure this class will meet my expectations and more....

T1 W7-8 2N3

I have finally finished teaching 2N3 the topic on Proportion. Having the AFL workshop really helped me in teaching this class. Because of the sessions, I had changed the way I wanted to teach the class. As I had said before, the students were not able to do the worksheets as the examples that I thought would help them, proved useless. I went on to 'force' the steps on them and the first two lessons turned out disastrous and of course the students and I ended up feeling very frustrated, especially the more-abled students. They just can't figure out why they can't do the sums. It was my mistake. I didn't plan enough for them. They were lacking in their pre-requisite knowledge for that topic. The prior knowledge that they needed were: the ability to find the squares, square roots, cube and cube roots of integers, the ability to solve simple linear equations and also the technique of cross-multiplying. So when the facilitators of the AFL workshop said that it's ok to spend more time in discovering and clarifying their misconceptions and making sure the students have the correct building blocks before proceeding to the next level, I did just that. I spent two periods on making sure they have the required pre-requisite knowledge. Then I repeated the steps that I did with them and it was so much easier for the students and I. For every step that they did correctly, I praised them. It is important to celebrate the small successes as I can see that that keeps the class motivated. The students were now able to apply the skills and were very motivated to do another sum when they get the first one correct. About one-third of the class kept wanting to show their correct workings on the board and most of them passed in the test given. I really felt satisfied. The next topic that they will be doing will be Expansion and Factorisation of Algebraic Fractions. I will spend a few periods testing their prior knowledge (simple algebraic expansion and manipulations) before teaching them how to expand the product of two algebraic expressions a.k.a the 'smiley face' .