The Function Notation Trident

Three years ago I blogged about using the function notation slider and every year I tweet about it for #teach180. One year someone suggested I make the slider have a third prong for the answers too. At first, I was appalled that someone didn't love the slider as is and then randomly this year I decided it was a great idea and I should do it. Now. lol

And it was a great idea! I love how it turned out and it's my favorite use of the Boomerang.

Here's the file:

Written Response

This year I wanted to work on having students read and respond to somewhat academic articles.

My first attempt was posting the link to this article for my older students in Google classroom. I asked them to read it and then come back and type a comment about how they could relate to this article but not post it. Then, I counted to three and we all posted at the same time. Next they had to read everyone's comments and respond to at least one. I liked this idea because everyone's voice was 'heard' but nobody could be accused of copying since we all posted at the same time. And some students were surprised to see that almost everyone felt the same way.

I have to share some excerpts:

My second attempt was with this article. I posted a list of questions as a google doc and students had to write a short written response. Here is the link to a copy of the doc. As I was grading them, I pulled one quote from each person's paper. I posted all of the quotes, with names, as a google classroom post. I asked them to read all of the comments and then respond with either "I agree with ____ because ____" or "I disagree with ____ because ____". This did not go over nearly as well as my first attempt. I would recommend either the comments or the written response rather than this weird combination of the two, to be honest.

I do a semester paper twice a year so I considered this a baby version of that since it was less than a page. I'm mostly looking for their ability to follow directions, meet a deadline, and to put their thoughts into sentences. But I also wanted to do a little check to see if they actually read the article so I gave this 5 point pop quiz. Spoiler alert: they did not all read the article.



Next up are these two articles.

INB Setup: Rotating Stations

Day 2 was Notebook Set Up Day and I tried something new: rotating stations. Usually I go through things one step at a time, wait for everyone to finish, go to the next step. Stations let people work at their own pace, force them to read directions, and save my sanity.

Here's what the process looked like:

Here's the finished product.

I made coloring sheets with each students name on it.

H- Handouts Q- Quizzes T- Tests

Dividers are made out of card stock and sticky tabs.

Students write each other nice post-it notes and stick them to this template.

Interactive Notebook- duck tape on the spine, ribbon bookmark, rubber band hole punched in the back 

Here's the directions (made to fit in 4x6 frames).

Dry Erase Book: An Update

I was super excited about these last year and made a lot of extra work for myself.

Over time, the pages got ripped out and the students constantly complained about how hard the pages were to erase.

I decided to simplify my life this year. I printed all the same pages (see previous post) on colored copy paper: Algebra I blue, Geometry green, Algebra II purple, and Trig pink. I binder clipped those together.

Then I printed the note you see below on white card stock (use a gray font so the letters won't show through) and slid it inside a sheet protector. Then I threw in a skinny dry erase marker and put everything inside this button up envelope (3 for $1 at Dollar Tree).

 Nothing to tear apart, easy to erase, easy to replace.

And cute!

Year 11