Third Week
September 24
September 25
September 26

Fourth Week
September 29
September 30
October 1
October 2
October 3

Fifth Week
October 6
October 7
October 8
October 9
October 10

Sixth Week
October 13
October 14
October 15
October 16
October 17

Seventh Week
October 20
October 21
October 22
October 23
October 24

Eighth Week
October 27
October 28
October 29
October 30
October 31

Ninth Week
November 3

Algebra II went by fairly well. I quickly summarized the previous section (Solving inequalities) by saying "Solving inequalities is exactly the same as solving equations with one exception: when multiplying or dividing by zero, you need to flip the inequality sign." Apparently just saying that, I answered a few questions. I'm not surprised. My lecture on Friday was a bit on the disjointed side. I think I lost sight of the forest while i was concentrating on the trees. When I presented the forest to the students today, most of their hands shot down. That was good.
I had them write out their answers on the board, then. With the exception of a few careless mistakes, they did all the procedures correctly. So maybe my lecture wasn't that bad after all...
In any event, I started lecturing on solving combined inequalities (like 2 I still can't shake the feeling that my lectures are boring, though. I saw Mike put his head down on his desk midway through my talk. I didn't have heart to say anything, though, because I couldn't blame him. If I were a student, I would be put to sleep too! But what to do? I have absolutely no clue how to make this material interesting. Oh sure, I could incorporate some of the ideas from a few books I've read... but let's face it: those changes would require radical restructuring of the class. Let me rephrase that. Those changes would require radical restructuring of Maureen's class. What happens when I'm gone in a few weeks? I'm not sure that the class could easily switch back to a different style. So I'm stuck. Ah well...
Algebra I, 4th hour, also went fairly well. When I did the section on generalized problems (x^n instead of x^6), they seemed to grasp it much faster then did 5th hour on Friday. All in all, I was satisfied that they understood what was going on. We shall see tomorrow when I quiz them, though. I lectured on multiplying and simplifying fractions. Much of it (the non-variable part) was review for them. They caught on fast to the variable fractions, too. The book has this section and the next one screwed up order-wise. They should have had Sec 2-11 first, since you need the info from it to simplify the fractions in 2-10. Since 4th hour is a fairly good class, I covered the material from 2-11 very quickly and assigned a few problems from 2-11. This should catch 4th hour up to 5th hour.
Speaking of 5th hour... well, let's say that there are quite a few slower students in that class then there are in 4th hour. I was helping quite a few of them out on the assigned homework and was shocked at how little they were thinking through the problems. What is x times y? I heard an answer of "1" more than once. These students just aren't synthesizing previous knowledge with the current material.
Tomorrow, I start teaching both Algebra I sections. It should be interesting.