What just happened...

Today was the first of two days that my mentor teacher will be absent from class due to inservice meetings, so I was on my own teaching the students their lessons. With my mentor teacher absent from class, it proved to be harder than ussual to teach the students. I think that the reason why the classes were harder to teach simply because my mentor teacher wasn't in class to help me keep in the kids in line.

The day started off with me being sick to my stomach because I believe that I was really nervous about being on my own teaching. Once I got to school and getting the classroom organized for the day, I was starting to feel better. Fortunately today I had the first two periods of four to prepare myself for the two classes of the day. Once 3rd period started is where I felt like the day started going down hill. I had a quiz that the students to start off with that ended up taking the entire 20-25 min. before the students went to lunch. While and after the students were taking the quiz, the majority of them were telling me that the quiz was hard when in fact it shouldn't have been because it was over material that we've learned since the last test (except for the material from last class time where they really struggled on grasping the material). To help you get an idea as to what the questions were, then here they are:

Given a polynomial f(x) = 18x^3 + 36x^2 - 8x - 16 (the carrots are telling you that the next value is an exponent)

A)What is the degree of the given polynomial
B)Describe the relationship between the degree of a polynomial function and the number of roots it has
C)Factor the given polynomial function and write it as a product of factors.
D)Identify the zeros of the given polynomial function.
E)What is the y-intercept of the given function.
F)Using end behavior, predict the shape of the graph of the given polynomial.
G)Sketch the graph of the given polynomial using the zeros, y-intercept and end behavior.

Okay, so from here if the student should be able to answer correctly E and F individually. Parts A and B are associated with one another and should be able to answer them as well. Then we get to C and D, where these two are associated with each other as well. For looking at what the students have been putting down for their answers was that the students were not factoring the polynomial completely and thus not being able to identify all the zeros. Also what's frustrating is that when some of the students started sketching their graphs, the graphs did not match up with the other parts that the students discovered. In the end, this quiz should not have been very hard as the students have made it out to be.

When the students came back from lunch, I tried my best on clarifying the material that was covered the previous day, and then try to teach the lesson that was sheduled for the day. In the end, I spent somewhere around 30-45 min. on the material from the previous day, and 15-30 min. on the material that was supposed to be covered today. The silver lining I suppose for 3rd period would be that I believe the students have a better grasp of the material from the previous day.

Next came 4th period. All in all, I think that this class went better than my 3rd period class even though they are different math classes. If I haven't mentioned it before, my 3rd period class is an Algebra II H/GT and my 4th period is Math Modeling with Application (MMA). Now the MMA class is more frustrating majority of the time simply because these are students whose math skills are very poor. So to say that the MMA class went better than the Algebra II class is saying something. Today in MMA we did a group activity that was a review for their test in the next class time together. As far as I could tell, all the students were working and being engaged in the activity. Even though I decided to approach the lesson differently than planned, having the students being engaged and active makes things appear to run smoother. After this review activity and everyone being engaged, I'm hoping that the students do well on their test that they have on the day after tomorrow.

I'm sorry for going on like this, and if you are still reading at this point I really appreciate it. Now I know that as a teacher in training that I just need to learn from today and make adjustments for the classes that I teach tomorrow (with block scheduling I have two more Algebra II classes and one MMA class that will go over the same material as today). But after what felt like a struggle today, it's hard to look at the silver lining. I just wish that I have someone that I know well at my school that I can go to for a hug and some words of encouragement.