Friday, October 25, 2013

Grade 6 Geometry Unit Feedback

Geometry Unit Feedback

I received some very helpful feedback last night  from my classmates regarding my Geometry Unit for Grade 6.   I  also had a few question that I posed as well and now believe I have a clear direction of the student objectives and how the students are going to achieve them.   The first thing I am going to modify or revise is the readiness test that I created in order to see if the students have mastered the Geometry Common Core Standards from Grade 5. If mastered then we will be able to continue into the geometry unit with little review. My feedback was to shorten the length of the test and focus more on the concepts of geometry versus the technical vocabulary or names of the shapes such as identifying particular triangles - isosceles, scalene or right.  Because I was not quite comfortable with the thought of putting less emphasis  on vocabulary, it was proposed that I include a word bank for those who need it. So I am going to proceed with this modification . If the goal is to have students use geometric concepts and skills to solve real-world problems then it may just be enough to initially include the word bank.
Another aspect of the unit that was discussed was, “ who are the students I should pull to work on the unit?”.  Seeing that I  am a math coach and do not have a classroom I will be pulling a small  group of 6th grade students to teach the unit. I decided I would pull the students who perform the highest on the readiness test versus a range of levels to teach. I feel that way, I will be able to dive into the unit with little review/reteach. This will allow me to give better feedback regarding the lessons and students performance due to the fact that it is based on Common Core Standards versus the CMT standards that the students are accustomed to.
Lastly, at least for now, I feel that the materials/resources that I chose for the unit were appropriate and were received with approval from my team of classmates during our feedback session. The materials include, but are not limited to: Geometer's Sketchpad, Shooloo, Lessons from LearnZillion and Illuminations. I also accounted for back-up materials such as protractors, compasses, patterns blocks, geoboards & graph paper, as well as Tangrams; all in preparation for those technological PITA issues that I may encounter.

I plan to start the unit next week and will post the progress and monitoring on my blog.

2 comments:

  1. This sounds amazing, I truly wish I had the opportunity to hear about it first hand.

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  2. I know that you and the learners will both enjoy this and profit from it. Don't forget to think about the power relationships --- I wonder what those not chosen will think about those who are chosen and about themselves as non participants? How will you explain to them what's going on?

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