Friday, May 16, 2014

Weekly Class Summary: May 12-16

SOLs Covered:  SOL 7.9-7.16 P&S and PF&A
Math Dictionary Sections:  Review all sections on P&S and PF&A
Upcoming Assessments:  SOL Quiz #5 (Fri. 5/23/14); Math 7 SOL (1st Wed. 5/28, 3rd Thurs. 5/29, 7th Fri. 5/30)

We had yet another fun-filled week of SOL review!  Well, as fun as practice problems can be at least.  Students worked on the packet for the final (and biggest!) category of the SOL, Probability & Statistics (SOL 7.9-7.11) and Patterns, Functions, & Algebra (SOL 7.12-7.16).  Thankfully, my data projector was finally fixed by the end of the week, so we can now view online resources and use the Promethean board and ActivSlates again.  This was incredibly important since it allowed us to start looking at the practice problems from the VDOE website (links to it and other resources put together by CCPS).  These practice problems (31 total for Math 7) give students a taste of what to expect for online testing, which is really important for those students who are taking the SOLs for the first time this year.  There are various online tools available and we went over each one and some of the possible complications that can pop up with each.  As we continue to work through these practice problems as well as the newly released test (the first released test since the SOLs changed in 2009), we will continue to discuss various strategies for approaching the questions, how best to use the eTools available, and possible pitfalls that "hide" in the more rigorous questions.


We are quickly approaching the end of the school year.  With that I always have students asking what they can do to pull their grade up.  In order to give students an opportunity to earn some extra credit as well as continue their review for the SOLs, I've uploaded an assignment to Edmodo using their new snapshot tool.  The questions chosen are all for the probability, statistics, patterns, functions, and algebra section since that is the biggest category as well as the one the majority of students struggle with the most.  The assignment will remain active through May 30th, which will be the last day of Math 7 SOL testing.  Regarding the actual dates for testing, there was a slight change for the block 3/4 students, who had previously been scheduled to take the test on May 28th.  They are now scheduled to take the test on May 30th in order to allow students to go to their electives classes (and get a little break from the test-prep and testing environment) as well as to allow teachers to have a planning block.  I've updated the Google student calendar with this information as well as the other 7th grade testing dates/times (students must login with their CCPS account to view the calendar).


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