The last several days have been really incredible in my class! I have had the pleasure of doing things with my students this year that I have never done before! For example, the clickers you see above are new to my room. Let me say first, that I have wanted a SmartBoard in my room since 1999, but we were always hindered by the budget constraints and couldn't afford to get them. Two years ago, I asked our school's tech person for the OLD SmartBoard that the school had (but no one was using). I was limited in its use, for several reasons, but I WAS able to use it as somewhat of a larger screen to do my PowerPoint presentations that year. Last year, my current SmartBoard was installed, and it was a blessing! But I couldn't do then what I can do now! We hadn't yet ordered the Smart Response system then. This system allows the students to use the remotes to take their quizzes and tests. The responses are then downloaded into an Excel Spreadsheet for my use. Instead of trudging through the grading of a stack of papers, I have ONE sheet of paper with everyone's score on it, that I can then transfer to my gradebook! And the same clickers the students use to TAKE the tests give them instant feedback as to how they did on the tests! It's a win-win situation all around!
I intend to use the clickers this year on Fridays (unless I have a major test scheduled). For now, we will use them to take our weekly CRCT prep quizzes. I will also use them from time to time on other days during the week as an instant form of feedback to help the kids know how they are learning that which they need to learn. I am TRULY excited about this advancment, and the others which we are about to engage in! Soon, we will be doing PODCASTS of my lessons, which you will be able to pick up from iTunes! Isn't THAT amazing?
As for what we are actually studying, this past week saw the virtual end of our block on Probability. We began the first of three assessments on this unit, the major unit test. Now, some of the kids did well on the test, and others... well, it IS a test, so you can figure it out. Next week, we will work on two projects to wrap up the unit and show what we know. Then we will begin to study Number Operations, mainly focusing on exponents and radicals, eventually leading up to an in-depth study of the Pythagorean Theorem.
Keep checking back on this blog to see what's happening in the Red Hallway, Knights! See you tomorrow! 801, SECOND TO NONE!
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