Full Lead Critical Reflection

Madison Kellar

During my full lead, I was monitoring the following standard:

MA10-GR.HS-S.2-GLE.1-EO.c.vi.1.
Create equations in two or more variables to represent relationships between quantities, and
graph equations on coordinate axis with labels and scales.

To be a highly effective and culturally responsive teacher, means to ensure that students are
learning the standards your class needs to teach. A teacher cannot just plow through content
assuming students are getting it, but instead use formative assessment to get feedback on what
students are understanding in order to adjust instruction. A culturally responsive teacher makes
sure to scaffold to language and background, so all students have an entry point to the content.

At the beginning of the unit, we started with an investigation on vertex form. There was a
guided packet, that gave them equations to graph, and then they needed to discover what was
changing between the graphs. I spent the whole week conferring and scaffolding with students
as they did this. At the end of the week, I gave them an assessment where they had to explain
how each variable in the equation (a, h, k) would change the graph. They could use any notes
from the investigation, but their explanation had to be clear. On that test, nearly everyone
could tell me what the variable a did. 85% also knew what k did. 70% at knew that h moved the
parabola side to side, although some confused left and right. I expected that, as it moves
opposite of what they first think because of the negative. The last two questions were IB level
seven and eight questions, as we had not explicitly practiced them, and they were the final part
of the investigation without examples. 26% got at least one of these questions. I was happy
with those results, so we moved on.

Next, we were graphing parabolas from the equations. We used a table to graph equations
from vertex and standard form. I expected this to be simple as we had used a table to graph
lines the previous semester. Then I had many students freaking out that they did not get the
homework. I went over some problems, and gave them more for homework. They still were not
quite understanding the next day. I realized I did not give students enough information for their
homework. On this first day, I went over the example too quickly because I did not expect them
to need much, and I did not assess that they had it because they all said they understood. On
the second day, they had the process but they were not getting parabolas, and I realized they
were plugging into the functions wrong, because they were messing up all the positives and
negatives, or doing order of operations incorrectly. We spent the next week working on this
skill, and did more examples as a class when we added standard form. I also wonder if they
struggled because I took homework from a textbook, and there was quite a bit of extraneous
writing on the page. I think perhaps they do better when the page just has the problems they
need to look at, with a clear title that explains the vocabulary. Being able to read a textbook is a
skill I want to teach in my classes, but I believe it needs to be done in a more structured way.

When I was gone and my mentor introduced standard form, it was a disaster because she put
something on top of the key I left her, and could not find it. I knew this right away when I got
back, because I got many protests from students that they were totally confused. I ended up
re-teaching that, but it was fine. Then we got to putting all of that information together.
Students were not ready to compare the forms until a few days before their criterion A
assessment, because they did not have a good enough grasp on each one yet. I knew this
because of the feedback I received when we did the quadratics toolbox. I thought students
would be able to fill in most of it, especially because I let them use their notebooks, but they
had a really hard time navigating their own notes. I would say about 80% of students were
unable to access the notes they had taken from each form. I know I need to teach them to
actually use the notes they took, a few days or weeks later. I had to catch them back and we did
most of the table as a class instead of in table groups.

Once we had the basic ideas of each group, I gave them a review that was the same format as
the test. The test was more in depth than they have done in previous years, and it was designed
to have multiple entry points for each problem. I would give them one form, and they would
have to come up with the other forms, graph and make a table. Depending on what order they
get them in, they use different skills, so they have lots of options. I knew they would struggle
some with the test based on the review day before, but I knew I would have more time during
the project to continue working on these skills. Only about 50% of students passed. In
retrospect, I think I could have sequenced it better, or maybe switched the project around. But,
I did not want to make them spend the next week practicing in the same context, so it was not
working. So, we started the real life application of the project, knowing I would have to scaffold
more and confer a lot. Students were engaged in the project, and everyone was actively
working. Still though, 26% failed to actually turn it in at the end, even though I think they would
have passed had they tried to do it. 58% turned it in and passed. The quality of the papers was
quite good. They were much improved from the first semester when we wrote a similarly
structured paper. I had many students saying they finally got it. Some got the end and said
thats it? It had finally clicked in their head that they had all the skills, just needed to put them
together. Although at the beginning, I was not sure if the project had enough pull for students,
they enjoyed it and many exclaimed they were realizing math was everywhere!

For this unit, I had two essential questions:

1. How can different forms of the same equation help me solve a problem?
2. How can we use parabolas to model real world trajectories?
I think these were good questions to go with the unit, but did not have enough of a draw for
students to be quality essential questions. We also did not get to digging into answering these
until close to the end of the unit. I had planned to integrate more real life trajectories
throughout the unit, but students struggled with writing and understanding each form, that
when I put a word problem in front of them, they were not able to grasp it. Part of this was that
it took much longer to fix their misconceptions on graphing from a table. They also struggled
making sense of what information was being given, and thinking through which form might be
best.

My students really like it when I confer with them. They know they can get help as they work
through problems, and so they are actively asking questions the whole time. The way the test
was written gave them more options of ways to solve the problem, and it was up to the rigor
that they need going into algebra 2, so I would keep it. However, I would have more time
leading up to it. The project was helpful in cementing the skills they needed. I am still
wondering whether the skills test or the project should come first. I think they needed to put
the effort into practicing the skills that they do not really do until they study for the test, before
they would understand the project. However, the project helped many of them make
connections between the forms that their study habits did not. Next time, I might try reviewing,
then doing the project, then the skills test. Part of the reason we did not do this though, was
because we wanted the project the week before spring break. We did not want a test, as
students leave early for break. They could accomplish the project in less days though, if they
needed to. So of course school schedules play into that as well.

Overall, I would definitely want to extend this unit another week. I could not due to spring
break this year. I would want to add more time for each form, so they could grasp each in turn,
and then look at some real life problems for that form before adding new information. I would
also start comparing the equations as soon as we introduced a new one with the quadratics
toolbox from the beginning. Writing it down in an organized table helped, but we needed to do
it as we went along.