Ben Charleston AEMS Math

This week was an interesting week for me. There was only four days of academic classes because the school held share day on Friday. This week I learned more about the students and how they learn, and I feel I am ready to teach a lesson next week. I have started creating my lesson, and I hope to teach it this week around the middle of the week. This week, during share day, I also learned how to play field hockey. Playing field hockey was the last thing I expected to do when I decided to do my senior project at the elementary school. However, field hockey turned out to be a lot of fun. When we played field hockey I got to see a different side of the students. When people are just sitting in a classroom, they present themselves much differently than when they are doing something they enjoy. It was cool for me to see the students in a different way because they are much more than just students. This week I continued to enjoy helping out at the elementary school. I thought it would be bori...

Today I began preparing my lesson on factoring to teach to the Algebra one students. To do this I had to download the smart board software, which took a very long time. Then I had to create the lesson, which I thought would be easy because I pretty much knew what I wanted to do. However, the smart board software did not work great from me, and I had trouble formatting things which made this simple task rather time consuming. Then, I looked for an activity to do with the students regarding factoring. I found a cool activity which incorporates factoring into the game of “clue” which should be fun for the students. Now I am almost done with my lesson, and i plan to go over it with Michelle in the coming days. Hours today: 2.5 Total hours: 34.5

Today at AEMS was share day, and members of the Andover community came in and shared something they were passionate about. I was in a group that was learning how to play field hockey. I had never played field hockey before, and I was not sure what to expect. We learned some basic skills in the classroom (because it was raining outside). After learning these skills we played some team building games until the gym opened up for us to play a game. These games were fun and interesting for me because I had never played them before. Once we finally got to the gym, we split up into two teams of four and played a game. The game was fun, and most of the kids picked up the game pretty quickly. Hours today: 2 Total hours: 32

Today at AEMS the students did a lot of practice work on their chromebooks using programs such as ixl and kahoot. In the sixth grade class, the students did work on their chromebooks regarding ratios. The students did well, however, when the questions changed to word problems, the students began to struggle a little bit. In the first eighth grade class the students finished a worksheet and then did ixl work. The kids are still working on solving systems of equations, and they are getting good at it. The kids are also getting more comfortable using desmos, an online graphing calculator, which is good because some topics in high school math require a graphing calculator. In the algebra one class, the students did a kahoot, and the teacher and I participated in the game as well. I got second, behind the teacher, and most questions I got wrong were because I answered too quickly. It was fun to see the students try to answer quickly while still getting the right answer because it showed th...

Today at AEMS it was bike to school day, and the first class was delayed a few minutes to allow all students to arrive to school. In the first class of the day, the sixth graders continued their work with ratios with a practice worksheet. The students did well with this worksheet, and the students had very few questions and they were getting the right answers. In the next class of the day, the eighth graders completed a worksheet on graphing systems of equations to find the solution. Today these students were also introduced to desmos, which is an online graphing calculator. Desmos can be used as a tool for students to check their work, when they do not know the answer to a question. Finally, in the algebra one class the students did a worksheet on multiplying polynomials. With the problems, most of the questions the students had were about combining like terms, and not the multiplying of the polynomials, which I thought was interesting. Hours today: 3.5 Total hours: 26.5

Today at AEMS, the schedule returned to normal, and I had three regular math classes. In the first class of the day, the sixth graders moved from mixed number and fractions to ratios which are very similar. The students handled the new concepts well, and the only mistake they made was sometimes messing up the order of the ratio. In the second class of the day, the eighth grade students continued with graphing systems of equations to find the solution. The students are doing well with this, however, when the equation is not presented in the y=mx+b form, they sometimes struggle. In the last class of the day, the algebra one kids started learning how to multiply polynomials. This is a relatively easy process, and the students did a good job. The only mistake the students occasionally made was not correctly adding the exponents when the multiplied. Hours today: 3.5 Total hours: 23

Today the elementary school had a science fair for the sixth and seventh graders, and the eighth graders had a field trip. So, instead of going to class I went to the science fair for about an hour and thirty minutes. There were a lot of interesting projects, and it was cool to see students present a project that they were passionate about. One of the projects that was interesting was a demonstration about time and space which explained the characteristics of a black hole. Another project that was cool was a project about the falcon 9 SpaceX rocket which explained the design of the rocket and some facts about the rocket. After the science fair, I went back to the classroom to plan out my activity for next week. My plan is to do my activity on next Tuesday on factoring, an interesting and important topic in math. I look forward to doing my activity and hopefully helping students learn in the process. Hours today: 3.5 Total hours: 19.5