Monday, April 26, 2010

Week of 4/26/10

One week left until the CST...

This week, the 6th graders will continue to review for the CST.  We will be taking a short "pre-test" on Monday to see how prepared the students are.  Expect your child to bring home their graded pre-test with a CST predictor score.  Each day, we will be focusing on 2-3 key standards and on Friday, we will take a "post-test" to see how much we have improved and indicate how prepared we are for the CST.

On Monday, I will also be talking to the students about how the CST is structured.  There are 65 math questions and the students will have 2 days to complete them (technically, they have unlimited time and can ask for more than the 2 days that have been allocated).  The number of questions that students must correctly answer in order to get Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic, and Far Below Basic vary each year slightly.  Below is the breakdown for last year.





55-65Advanced
43-54Proficient
31-42Basic
21-30Below Basic
0-20Far Below Basic


There are 30 different standards that can be tested on the CST.  Some are more important than others.  For example, one standard could have 6 questions on the CST, whereas another standard may have one question every other year.  This week, we will be focusing on the "key" standards.  These are the standards that have 3 or more questions on the CST.  If a student were to answer all of the key standard questions on the CST correctly, they would easily score Proficient.

Students who do not finish the classwork must complete it for homework.

8th Graders will be working on word problems this week, covering the last bit of material of the curriculum.

Homework for the week is as follows:

6th Grade HW
Mon (4/26) - CST packet #60-67
Tue (4/27) CST packet #68-77
Wed (4/28) CST packet #78-84
Thu (4/29) - CST packet #85-91
Fri (4/30) CST packet #92-96 (Quiz today)


8th Grade HW

Mon (4/26) - Word Problems # 1-3
Tue (4/27) Word Problems # 4-7

Wed (4/28) Word Problems # 8-11
Thu (4/29) - Word Problems # 12-15
Fri (4/30) - No HW (Quiz today)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Week of 4/19/10 - Unit 6 Results

11 Days Until the CST...we're counting down!

The California Standards Test will be administered from May 4 - 7, 2010.  There will be early release (students stay for lunch and are released at 12:45 pm).  Students will be testing with their 4th period teacher.

Homework for both the 6th and 8th graders will primarily be from the CST released test questions.  This packet of questions comes from old CST's.  Instead of giving the answers each day, I will be giving the students 5 minutes to discuss with their table groups the answers that they got.  Each table group will decide on their answers and I will grade their table group answers.

I will be chaperoning the 8th grade field trip to San Jose State University on Thursday, so the students will have a substitute then.

Algebra students will be continuing our study on rational expressions.

6th grade students will be working at different stations each day to review for the CST.  Special thanks to Grant Cooperman, Andrew Gonzalez, Melissa Murphy, Nick Escobedo, Araceli Esquivel, Kathy Chavez Alvarez, Gaby Rodrigues, Kevin Soto, Jacob Powers, Rachel Kiep, Leonardo Robles-Gonzales, Alex Ruffo, and Cayla Antonio for accepting positions as station leaders and helping out.

On Friday (April 9), the 6th grade students took their Unit 6 Test. Our goal was for each student to demonstrate at least 80% mastery. Since there were 25 questions,  you could only miss 5 questions. 


Congratulations to the following students who met our Big Goal and demonstrated mastery of Unit 6:
Grant Cooperman, Lindsay Cutler, Melissa Murphy, Gabe Yee, Josh Herndon and Leonardo Robles-Gonzales.



There were no perfect or one-miss scores this time.

Below are class results of the Unit 6 Test on Probability.



PeriodAverage (Raw)Average %Students Above 80%Total Students
414.056%425
512.450%027
613.052%230

Test Corrections & Retakes:
Test corrections and retakes will take place next week on Monday after school and Wednesday after school.


Homework for the week is as follow:

6th Grade HW
Mon (4/19) - CST packet #10-18
Tue (4/20) - CST packet #19-29
Wed (4/21) - CST packet #30-40
Thu (4/22) - CST packet #41-50
Fri (4/23) - CST packet #51-59


8th Grade HW

Mon (4/19) - CST packet #57-65
Tue (4/20) - CST packet #66-73
Wed (4/21) - CST packet #74-78
Thu (4/22) - CST packet #79-87
Fri (4/23) - CST packet #88-96

Monday, April 5, 2010

Week of 4/5/10 - Unit 5 Test Results

On Friday, the Algebra students took their Unit 5 Test. Our goal was for each student to demonstrate at least 80% mastery. Since there were 15 questions,  you had to get at least 12 correct. Congratulations to all students who met our Big Goal and demonstrated mastery of Unit 5!

There were several students who had outstanding performance.

Kilian Kistenbroker answered 15 out of 15 questions correctly!

Samrawet Samuel answered 14 out of 15 questions correctly!


In addition to the students mentioned already,
Salena Escalante and Ryan Niederer met our goal of 80% mastery.

Great work, everyone!!

Below are class results of the Unit 5 Test.



PeriodAverage (Raw)Average %Students Above 80%Total Students
15.637%030
37.345%532

Test Corrections:
Test corrections will take place Tuesday and Wednesday during lunch in my room.  Students can earn half credit for questions they correct.

Retakes:
Only students who come in to complete the test corrections will be eligible for the retake.  Retakes earn full credit points and replace the original test grade.  This will take place in room 802 (Math Lab) on Wednesday after school from 2pm - 3pm.

This week, the Algebra students will begin their unit on rational expressions.  We will be covering how to simplify, multiply, and divide rational expressions before spring break.  Over spring break, the students are to continue on the assigned questions from the CST packet (17 questions total).

This week, the 6th grade students will be wrapping up the short unit on probability and will take their Unit 6 Test on Friday.  They, too, will be given a CST packet and are to work on questions #1-9 during spring break.


6th Grade HW
Mon (4/5) - Pg. 356 #1-4, Pg. 359 #1-3
Tue (4/6) - Pg. 360 #4-8
Wed (4/7) - Pg. 364 #1-5
Thu (4/8) - Unit 6 Study Guide
Fri (4/9) - CST packet #1-9


8th Grade HW

Mon (4/5) - CST packet #17-23
Tue (4/6) - CST packet #24-32
Wed (4/7) - CST packet #33-39
Thu (4/8) - Quiz 22 Practice Problems
Fri (4/9) - CST packet #40-56