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Math 2: Week 5

  • Writer: Karli Chmelik
    Karli Chmelik
  • Mar 7, 2023
  • 3 min read

Today I am continuing on with my series of sharing what I do in my Math 2 class each week. This week we are 5 weeks into our 18 week semester, and finally nearing the end of our quadratics unit. My students are excited about this, I on the other hand am not. Quadratics is one of my favorite topics to teach so I love how much time we spend with them in Math 2. Keep reading to see how we spent our 5th week in math 2!


Monday: Our topic of the day was solving Quadratic Functions by graphing and factoring. We go through our notes on solving by graphing and graph the functions by hand. We talk about the difference between having 2 real solutions, 1 real solution and 2 imaginary solutions. The notes also help us to notice the differences on the graphs and focusing where these solutions really show up. A lot of this is something demos can do easily, but my district has moved the ACT to being online with desmos, so we still heavily focus on doing the work by hand but checking our work in desmos if we feel we need to. After finishing our notes on solving by graphing we took notes on solving by factoring. I focus my notes heavily on the difference between just factoring an expression, and actually solving the equation by factoring. After the notes, they had time to work on their homework in groups.


I try to give my students time to work on something - homework, practice, etc - in class so it isn't all full class instruction or all independent instruction all day everyday.


Tuesday: I started class today by having my students up and moving around the room with an around the room activity. It focused only on solving by graphing and factoring, it was also a short 12 question activity so it didn't take long at all. This activity is linked below and available in my teachers pay teachers store. After everyone finished the around the room, we took notes on complex numbers. With my standard level math 2 group, we focus mainly on knowing that the complex number "i" means we can now take the negative out of our radical when solving for complex roots. We add, subtract and multiply complex numbers as well. After the notes, my students worked on a complex numbers card sort. They loved it and I loved hearing them talk about the "i" and what happens when the "i" is raised to the second power. This is the first semester I did this card sort, and I can tell doing something hands on and manipulative with this lesson helped it stick better to them.




Wednesday: Today we spent adding a new method of solving quadratic functions to our list - the Square Root Method. We really only took notes on this lesson and didn't do anything crazy today. This is a method my students struggle with using, but when you remember how to do it, it can be one of the better ones to use. I made sure to go through the notes slowly and added in the complex roots later on into the notes once they had the steps down.


Thursday: We had a half day today! So classes were really short compared to what we are used to. I took the hour to answer any and all questions my students had on the methods of solving we have done so far this unit. They have a quiz on Friday, so we went through topic by topic on the quiz and I made sure they were ready. It is a "I am going to wing it and do what they ask" kind of day - which 3 years ago I would have NEVER done, but now I am confident in my teaching that these days end up being some of my favorite.


Friday: Today is quiz day! I took about 15-20 minutes to answer any last minute questions they had, winging it again and catering it to their needs to build their confidence for the quiz. Then it was time for them to take the quiz.


That is how we spent our 5th week in math 2. Please keep in mind we have 85 minute classes, so somethings may need to be shifted to apply to your classroom.

 
 
 

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