One of my take-aways for this week is that in order to be effective, I need to focus my energy into making one or two subjects great, rather than trying to save the world with every lesson plan.
I have been putting a lot of time and thought into my math lessons and I have seen some great improvements in what my students understand about fractions from lesson to lesson. Before changing to the interactive math notebook format of lessons, I found that the majority of students were just getting by in each math lesson and not really retaining information over a period of time. When the math unit test would roll around, we would re-teach all of the math from the unit and basically tell them how to do each problem on the test, but with different numbers. Even doing this we found that the majority of students were still not scoring well on the tests. I am hoping that the way in which I've broken down the fractions unit into smaller, simpler chunks and provided a ton of practice will help my students retain the math.
I also changed the format of homework from individual "busy work" worksheets to a homework notebook. Each night's homework involves students finding some way to practice spelling words, and the other part is a short math task. The math homework is essentially a mini-version or extra practice of the math we learned that day in the lesson. If students paid attention to the lesson and did the problems in the lesson, they are 100% able to do the problems on the homework. I have found that this has made homework more clear and straightforward, and I have seen a huge increase in the number of students who actually do the homework.
Moral of the story: I have found success in focusing on just one subject and making it "great" rather than trying to make every lesson every day a life-changer.
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