Today a fear of mine happened: I lost track of what I've covered so far in my two geometry classes. I started to plan for the day this morning and couldn't figure it out for the life of me. I prepared some extra material, probably enough for 3 days in reality, but I started both classes with some info we've already discussed. Overall, this wasn't a big deal; a little review never hurts. It kind of messed with the flow we had going in both classes though. Last week the students were directing the curriculum (see previous posts) and then today I found myself moving back to old habits and directing more. I realized it about half-way through my second block but it was tough to get back to the questioning. I found the downfall in this plan that I didn't plan out: when it gets to the end of the unit, there is certain info I need to cover and it gets increasingly difficult to ask questions that will guide the students thought there. And I guess if I'm asking the questions to guide in a specific direction, its not totally student-directed. So, this is going to be tough to organize. I loved the way last week went. The students were into it, I was into it, everything was going awesome. Now, being limited by units, its getting tough as we finish up the first one. Ideally, as I said before, I would like to have the entire course's material planned ahead of time to really let the students run with the material instead of me leading the way. We shall see.
The good news is that I got everything covered in both classes within the same time frame. I had a few students notice that between classes they had differing homework assignments, but it didn't bother anyone.
I did end the day with a lil' bit o' problem solving. Got my students thinking, motivated, and I'm slowly turning them into super geniuses. More on that problem tomorrow...
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