First Day Back From Break

Today's objective was addition and subtraction of fractions. Or at least I thought this was the objective. During our daily journal time at the closing of the lesson scholars had many unique learning experiences to share. One scholar responded he learned how to use the order of operations. Another scholar responded he learned how to solve algebra problems. I'm glad to see the students' challenged in ways that extend beyond the surface level objective and spiral skills from throughout the academic year.

Daily mastery when solving addition and subtraction of fractions in an algorithm form was 100%. However, when students were asked to convert the fraction to simplest form the mastery declined to 68%. And when presented with a challenging word problem the mastery decreased to 40%. On yesterday's blog post I noted Simplest Form as a concept in need of remediation (as evidenced by the Item Analysis). The percentage still hovers similar to the most recent assessment. A mini-lesson Do Now intervention appears to be in order.

In regards to the significance of this blogging endeavor I came to a startling realization. The opening of the classroom to the public is something that should fall into the realm of normalcy. After all, tax payers' money fund the schools as well as teacher salary/retirement. Suddenly, the sharing of inner workings within the classroom appears commonplace.