MATHJonathan

July 27, 2011

__Determining Final Grades__

I am confident in my ability to fairly and accurately grade student work. I can tell how much a student knows on a math assessment. What I am not so confident about is my ability to organize all the assignments together into a quality grading scale that puts sufficient weights on different types of assignments. I struggle with whether or not to even include some things, like homework, and I also have read some pretty convincing arguments against using zeros in the traditional 100 point scale, but I am still not 100% convinced.

July 25, 2011

__Reflection Activity__

The student with the broken wrist would be the most difficult to accommodate. The student would probably be without use of their primary means of conveying information for quite a long time. This would require a great deal of extra work on the teacher's part to ensure that the student receives all of the same material, and that he or she is assessed in the same or similar manner as the rest of the students. The easiest scenario to deal with, for me, is the one involving a student who loses internet access at home for a considerable amount of time. I never assume that my students have internet access, or even a computer, at home. I know that students deal with some difficult situations, and I would never want to put any undo burden on any of them by expecting something that is beyond their control.

Author's Main Points: Writing has a place in a math classroom. Writing can help students gain a deeper understanding of math topics, as well as help them work through problems they are struggling with. In addition, writing in math class contributes to the teacher's knowledge of students' understanding.

Does the author support her point? Yes, the author supports her point very well. She cites several personal examples from her own classroom as well as common-sense reasoning. She makes a very convincing argument for using writing in a math classroom.

How does this support what I do/will do? I definitely plan to implement more writing in the classroom going forward. This article provides more reasons, and more importantly, additional strategies for doing so. I already use binders with my students for them to keep their work neat and organized. Adding a some sort of journal element to this would be easy to implement. Also, using writing prompts asking them to explain their answers is definitely something I am going to try.