Hannah+Litwa


 * - Hannah Litwa - Peer Tutor - Algebra I - Mr. Spano - First Period - **

Throughout this week I worked on learning each of the students' names and trying to focus on the areas they seem to be struggling with. The lessons this week were mainly about adding, subracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers with variables. Mr. Spano also taught them a lesson on classifying numbers (such as rational or irrational). Next week they will have their first big test on the topics that have been covered in class. As a whole, the class has been performing well. There have been two minor quizzes and the second was much better than the first. The class mainly makes minor sign or addition/subraction mistakes. While the class took their quizzes I would either make the key or look over Mr. Spano's key. After they all turned their quizzes in I graded them based off of the key. The students are becoming more comfortable approaching me with questions as I walk around the room while they work on homework assignments or class assignments.
 * Week of September 2nd - September 6th **

The students had their first major test on Tuesday and they performed very well. While they took their test I made the key. Mr. Spano also collected and graded their binders and told them in which areas they should improve. After the test they worked on keystone review problems. They has some questions but overall the class appeared to have a genral understanding of the content. Mr. Spano began teaching the next chapter that focuses on solving equations and learning how to write equations from word problems. The class started by making a list of possible "math words" that could appear in a word problem that meant add, subract, multiply, divide, or equal and then Mr. Spano walked them through a problem. The students were still having some trouble with it by the end of the class but their weekend homework should give them additional practice.
 * Week of September 9th - Septemeber 13th **

The students had a small quiz this week and displayed a strong understanding of word problems and solving two-step equations. The students are becoming more comfortable approaching me when they have questions. Joey is usually the first one with his hand raised in class and demonstrates a lot of participation. He is also very good with asking questions when he doesn't understand something which is something that Mr. Spano often urges them to do. I graded their minor quizzes and the only mistakes were minor sign and addition/subtraction mistakes. Mr. Spano is absent September 20th, and he's trusted me with checking their homework and answering questions they have regarding their homework. Also they had a small quiz and they keystone review that I helped with. This has been a very productive and progressive week!
 * Week of September 16th - September 20th **

We went through solving literal equations this week and they had a big test today. Yesterday (Thursday) was a review period and the day before that Mr. Spano gave them an activity that involved solving equations and matching them with their correct answers to form a four by four square. Since today was a double, after they finished the exam Mr. Spano began teaching proportions to prepare them for the Keystones. While he taught, I graded the tests and overall they were very good. The largest issues I noticed were, once again, small sign and arithmetic mistakes. They did very well on the word problems, I was very impressed! Mr. Spano expects their next quiz to be Wednesday or Thursday of next week. They seem to understand proportions very well though, I anticipate the only issue being arithmetic errors.
 * Week of September 23rd - September 27th **

The students did very well on their test! On Wednesday they took thier District Assessments but without learning most of the information they didn't perform well which is completely acceptable. Hopefully their skills will improve as we cover more information and they will start to become more proficient in the areas that the Keystones will be testing. Mr. Spano mentioned some of the ways he will make use of the iPads in the classroom, such as having them do their "Do Now"s on them and sending the answer directly to him so he can see where they are having problems. On Tuesday and Thursday Mr. Spano went over Algebraic Proportions and Percents. He did a couple examples with sales tax and tip to provide more real life examples to make it relatable. Overall the Algebra I class is performing very well!
 * Week of September 30th - October 4th **

The Algebra I Students had two short quizzes this week, one on proportions and cross multiplication and one on Friday about slope. There seems so be a lot of confusion about slope but I'm sure they just need more practice to get accustomed to the topic. They performed very well on the proportion exam though! I've continued just assisting the students when they need help and they are getting more comfortable asking me questions. I'm interested to see how the class will change once the iPads are introduced. Mr. Spano has been talking about some ideas he had about how he is planning on utilizing them in the classroom. I think it will take a while to fully incorporate the iPads into the curriculum effectively. Today (Friday) they learned how to graph using the slope-intercept form of a line (y=mx+b) and their homework over the weekend is practice with this.
 * Week of October 7th - October 11th **


 * Week of October 15th - October 18th **