tuesday, november 17, 2015

The day has finally arrived!  Today the students took the test for the unit, Matter:  Properties and Change which covered the physical properties of matter (basically, solids), the properties and classification of minerals (including Moh's Scale of Hardness), the three types of rocks (igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic), and how they are formed.

While the test was administered today, the unit is not over with quite yet.  Tomorrow and Thursday will be devoted to either review (for those who scored less than 80%) or enrichment (for those who scored 80 and above).  Friday will be the retest day.  Monday and Tuesday will be the final two days of this unit.  

Overall, I have to say that again I am very impressed by the scores.  Keep up the great work!

So why not immediately move to the next unit (Energy:  Conservation and Transfer)?  Our school uses the Teach/Test/Reteach/Retest model and I want to give the students who did not show mastery (<80%) one more chance.

Also, next week has only two days before Thanksgiving Break and attendance will definitely be down considering that many will be travelling.  It is best to simply have a two day enrichment/reinforcement time vs starting something new.  We will begin the Energy:  Conservation and Transfer unit on Monday, November 30th when we return from Thanksgiving Break.

Since there was a test today, the warm-up was different.  I allowed the students 5-10 minutes to review their notes or read quietly if they wished.

Then the students had the following instructions on the screen for the entire time.  As you can see, I did my best to stress some important points but ultimately it is up to the students themselves to read and follow instructions.

That is all that we did today.  I wanted to ensure that everyone had enough time to finish.