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....