01/27/09

Today there were two people in the sixth grade which was great. I often feel like I don't have enough time to go around and give the students my full attention as they are working on their practice problems. We usually have a page of problems that we'll work together on in class. I prefer to have them attempt them on their own and ask questions if they don't understand. I don't like doing all of them verbally because if there is a student who doesn't know what is going on, they will just copy the answers without challenging themselves. We are currently working on changing percentages to decimals and visa versa. They have also learned to change mixed numbers and regular fractions over to percents as well. Since there were a couple people helping out in the class today I was able to walk around knowing that two others were able to help the students who had their hands up. I have heard people from short term trips mention that they don't feel like they did too much, but from my standpoint, having someone in the class with me is a tremendous help. Further, that little bit of help for some students may be just what they needed to get past a sticking point that would have prevented them from moving forward with the class.