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Reflections on Transformations
March 29, 2000
I began my unit plan on Friday (March 24, 2000). Things started off really well and the students really enjoyed working on the tessellations. On Monday we did reflections and used Miras to drqw the reflections for some fun activities. This was another interesting activity and the studnets got really involved with it. This is also where things started to veer away from the daily routine I had planned. It took longer for the Mira activity and we did not get finished in one day. Then on Tuesday there were a lot more quesitons about the homework and we only got part way throught the notes on rotations. We did not even get to the Kaleidoscope images. My teacher said that this often happens and adjustments have to be made on a daily basis. Today we were able to finish the notes on rotations and complete the Mira Activity. I am going to try to do the Kaleidoscope images at the very end of the unit if there is time. I may not be able to do it at all. It has been interesting to see how things that I thought would work don't and how some things are really great activities.
April 3, 2000
I finished my unit plan today with a Quest (Quiz/Test). It will be interesting to see how they did. During the review on Friday (March 31, 2000) the students had a lot of questiosn that I was not expecting. They did not remember many of the terms and could not apply many of the things we had practiced. Hopefully having the weekend to study will help. We were able to get to hte Kaleidoscopes today as a project after the Quest. Most students thought they would be fun to do. This unit was very different from many of the others they have done and I don't think they were prepared for not having to do typical math problems. Next we are going to be starting a chapter on proportions and similarity.
April 7, 2000
The Quest grades were not as good as I thought they would be. Some studnets really understood the material, but the majority struggled. From discussions with my teacher and my own reflections, I feel that this is due to the fact that the material is very different from anything they have normally done in a math class. A lot of the students got wrapped up in the artistic part of the chapter and did not learn the necessary theorems and concepts. This even showed up in the Kaleidoscopes. Everyone got hte idea of rotating the image, but many people left out the reflection or did not produce a correct reflection. Students were not happy that they lost points because it was supposed to be an easy grade. Unfortunately they did not fulfill the requirements. Overall, I would say that the unit did not go as well as I had expected. The students had fun with the varieyt of activities, but they did not learn as much as expected. If I were to repeat this unit I would probably spend some more time on it or do more practice with the concepts and theorems and less on projects.