Chapter 8: What's My Line? Continued (Days 59-60)

Recall that at my school, regular teachers often have to cover classes during conference period. There's no way around it -- on most days, 100% of available subs must cover elementary classes. This week marks the first time that I've had to cover for the other math teacher -- an event made possible once my first period Stats class collapsed and the lone student in that class switched to fifth period. Before then, both of us math teachers had the same prep period, so we couldn't cover each other.

As it turns out, my partner teacher was present on campus today. The reason I must cover her class is, as the longest-tenured teacher at the school (here since the school first opened five years ago), she must serve as the substitute principal when the administrators have a meeting. Her first period class is Integrated Math III, consisting mainly of juniors.

On Monday, she set up an Edpuzzle on solving systems of (two) linear equations. She's a regular user of Edpuzzle, but she extended an invitation for the rest of the teacher to use it for free -- the invitation expires at the end of the calendar year. I haven't decided yet how -- or whether -- I will incorporate Edpuzzle into my own class. (Then again, I still remember the Edpuzzle from last year that was, due to weighting, worth 40% of some students' grades.)

Today, my partner teacher decides to use Desmos, and she prepares a lesson on inverse functions. Aware that these students have had two block days this week without a directed lesson (with only the minimum day remaining), I start calling students at random. Then I start asking questions about a certain function, f(x) = 5x + 9 -- in particular, I would give them a certain x-value and ask for f(x), and vice versa. I can't see their Desmos lesson, so I don't know whether they've learned inverse notation f ^-1 or not. Thus I only ask them simple questions about functions.

Before I knew that I must cover a class today, I arrive expecting to plan for my own classes during my conference period. I still do so -- but I take time from this to ask the Math III kids about functions. I admit that yes -- my priority should be my own classes, and that my job in first period is only to supervise, not to teach, the Math III class. Still, I always feel guilty if I'm in a math class and don't teach any math, no matter what the circumstances.

Well, here's how the lessons I work on during the Math III class turn out. For Calculus, we move on to Section 3.8, on applying derivatives to the natural and social sciences. I know going in that I wouldn't be able to cover all the examples, so I focus on the first example -- the motion of a particle. There's almost always a particle motion problem in the free response section of the AP Exam. One of the two assignments I give today has just two questions -- but each of these has a whopping nine parts.

In Stats, we proceed with the next six pages of Chapter 8, on lines of best fit. I begin by passing out the TI-84 calculators and have them find lines of fit, and predicted values (y-hat and all that). Once again, I'm learning as much Stats as the students -- I finally understand what the phrase "regression to the mean" really refers to.