Beverly George's Page

Well, it's a sure sign of spring when the snow has melted, the kids have gone absolute stir-crazy for summer, and my colleagues and I gathered for our last Algebra for All After-School meeting.

This time, we had so many things to talk about - there wasn't much time to waste.

First on the agenda was the upcoming final project for our last face-to-face meeting in May.  I came across an astounding lesson in the Connected Math series that we tweaked and adjusted…

I've been looking through tons of lessons and trying to figure out what to do for that final project - coming up with some type of assessement that will lead students towards more THINKING on their own.... more problem solving on their own.  I think the Spaghetti Bridge has been retired, at least for now.  I'm sure there's a great science teacher out there somewhere that will gladly pick up my slack on that one!  Lol! 

At any rate, I'm off to work on the lesson, and I'll be…

I've come to grow quite fond of our little After School meetings!  The discussion is always quite intense, world problems are solved, and the food is always good, too!

Last week, we met yet again.  Topics up for discussion included possible changes to our final project before the May presentation.  We talked about A4A lessons that we've recently tried in the classroom and plan to use in the future.  We discussed the Responsibility for Learning lens.  Finally, at the last…

My colleagues and I met to discuss our successes and failures with the Spaghetti Bridge lesson.  Oddly enough, others that tried this same lesson had the same exact problems that I encountered.  Students had no drive or motivation to complete the assignment.... sadly enough, we also discussed that is much the issue during ANY lesson.  Students lack the curiosity and work ethic necessary to complete an open-ended problem such as this.  They don't want to solve the problem... it's almost like…