Friday, February 22, 2019

Ms. V and the Rounding Expert


For Tuesday through Thursday of last week, I covered for a special ed teacher who had a rather complex schedule. He was not in the same room two periods in a row. (Well, he did have one class that was the same for two periods, but those classes were split by lunch.) He did all the travelling because he co-taught for three periods.

And his co-teachers were present for all three days.

Fifth and sixth periods were integrated math 1 (read: 9th grade math or algebra 1). 

On Wednesday the topic was joint and relative frequencies on two-way tables.  

Ms. V would go over a bit, then she'd have them do a couple problems on their own before going over what they should have gotten. When they were trying the problems, I actually had something to do. I'd walk the room and help those with questions. 

They were dividing numbers, and their answers were decimals. Ms. V had told them to round their answers. And that's where most of the questions came from. They weren't sure how to round. 

I don't know why rounding is so hard. In the various math classes I've covered (and I've covered quite a few), rounding keeps coming up, and the students are struggling. 

At a pause, I let Ms. V know that that was what most of the questions I got were. She assured me that she had just gone over the topic with them. (That I did not doubt. I only brought it up so she knew what issues they were having.) 

Ms. V continued with the lesson. At the next pause to let them try out the problems, Ms. V made an announcement to the class: "If you have questions on rounding, ask Ms. A. She's an expert on rounding." 

Oh, that was sneaky, Ms. V. Sneaky...

13 comments:

  1. lol, sneaky Ms. V. I wonder if the kids have problems with rounding because they can't quite believe the rules. When I was younger, I had no confidence in whether I was rounding correctly even though I knew with 5 or more, round up. Or, maybe it has to do with not being precise like arithmetic is.

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  2. I wonder why they're having such a problem with it. Maybe Ms. V. isn't teaching it as well as she thinks.

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  3. Yeah, it seems pretty simple - isn't the rule what Su-sieee! (fun name!) said? Maybe she's overcomplicating it.

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  4. I hit the huge math wall in 6th grade and never recovered, but, gratefully, rounding stayed in my memory. Just don't tell your subbed class to contact me if they have more problems.

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    1. I hit that wall in 5th grade. Long division. But then everything turned around in 9th grade.

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  5. Oh...my...math. Never added up for me.

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  6. I guess you were never bored during that period, huh? :)

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    1. Nah. There were long stretches where she was teaching where I was just trying to stay awake.

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  7. Haha! Passive-aggressive? Or playful?

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  8. Hah, an expert on rounding. There's a title you didn't know you had ;)

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