Sometimes when you fail, you still win

I taught a lesson today on using logarithsm to solve exponential equations. Child's play, really. Actually, it worked out like this.

As I explained in my last post, I teach in conjunction with three other teachers. The way the schedule worked out this week, I am teaching last every day. And today's particular topic, logarithms, was being discussed in all four periods. So by the time I was to be teaching, anything that I had to say regarding logs was to have been said. And it pretty much was.

And then it was my time to teach, so I stood at the front of the class, and went over some basic log information. It failed miserably... and I stood up there and my mind raced as I considered the possibilities. My first thought was "THESE KIDS JUST BARELY LEARNED THIS!!! I was SITTING here for the lesson where they did this, how in the world did this information already leak out?". My immediate follow up thought was "Ok, so since it appears that this isn't hitting home, do I modify my lesson that I have planned to reteach this material, or should I charge ahead?"

Being the bulheaded young man that I am, I decided to plow ahead. I figured that even though they can't seem to consciously recall the information they need for this lesson, once I get into this stuff, it'll come back. I felt myself floundering, slightly.

My lesson that I had planned was centered around this activity - a puzzle really, that dealt with logarithms, solving them, and also rewriting them as exponential functions. I had planned on this taking up about 20-25 minutes of class time, so it was really important for my lesson that we were able to work on this puzzle. So I gave the directions on how to go about solving the puzzle, and set them off to work. *phew*

The students had divided into 9 groups of 3-4 students, and were racing against all the other students to get the puzzle completed. Which what this really meant was that I had to rush around to 9 groups to put out "fires", or answer the questions that they didn't ask at the end of insructions when I asked the class "Are there any questions?"

It didn't take long for about 90% of the students to really catch ahold of the vision of what I wanted them to be doing, and they took off with it. I was a little worried at first, because my FA (Faculty Advisor, for those of you with a short term memory akin to my own) and my CMA (you'll have to look this one up on your own) were both in the room, and they got up and started participating with the activity. This was nerve racking, because up to this point, whenever they have been in the room, they've been silent observers, hands off. I figured since they were getting involved, I must have done something wrong. I had failed...

And then all of a sudden, the class was over. I had run out of time, but in that time TWO groups had finished, and the rest of them were very close to being done. I really hope they grasped the content of that lesson.

When the class had left, my FA came up to me and told me that she loved this idea, and she thought the puzzle was absolutely fantastic! And later while I was in a meeting with my CMA, she told me what a great group activity it was, and she loved how everyone was involved for the entire time. I mentioned to her that I felt that the explanation was a little weak, and I wasn't sure after all was said and done if the students really had understood what I was wanting them to get out of it. She said not to fret it too much - they'll probably do just fine. Ok.

So, I thought I had failed, but somehow from an outside perspective, it wasn't seen that way. I didn't have time for the assessment to check for how well they understood the material since I ran out of time, but that's going to be the first order of business tomorrow. Hopefully the numbers will prove my success.

On another note, it would seem that Mom wants to hear about everything I mentioned at the end of the other post. I'll talk about them little by little, but not tonight. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures, coming soon!