Hard Decision

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This week I made a really hard decision. It wasn’t whether I should extend my projectile modeling lesson from one day to two. It wasn’t whether I should combine motion and related rates of change on a single quiz. Those are easy decisions to make in the day to day life of a teacher. No. The choice I have been facing for some time now is whether I could continue to be a math teacher… Read more »

It’s Coming – Common Core Algebra II

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I’m getting there. Around 90% of the lessons and homework sets for the first draft have been written. I’m still projecting a mid-March completion of the first draft, at least to a point where I’m going to be putting it out there for the wider audience. Here’s our cover. Thanks to C. Michael Frey, our artist and founder of Frey Art and Design, visit his site to see more of his great work. Click on… Read more »

Unit #3.Lesson #4.Intervals of Increase and Decrease

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So, I’ve had a number of people ask about whether the x-coordinate of a turning point should be included in an interval of increase or decrease or whether the intervals should always be exclusive. Believe it or not, I’ve been tossing this question around for awhile with my good friend Brian Battistoni at Arlington High. This is a great question and it can be argued both ways. What we really need is for NYSED to… Read more »

The Start of School is at Hand

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Hello All, Well, we have our first couple of days of professional development next week at Arlington (the 97th largest high school in America). This week for me is full of all sorts of fun stuff. I get to catalogue all of the supplies that came in over the summer, make sure all calculators have batteries that work, create list upon list to help teachers know who is teaching the same courses, who has prep… Read more »

Building a Better Common Core Algebra I

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So, this is my first blog post on our new discussion site. Many of you will be using the Common Core Algebra I curriculum this year that I wrote over many nights in the winter of 2013-2014. It is an imperfect text, and always will be. But, it can be made better through lesson study, comments, suggestions, and sharing. I believe that we can make a successful transition to the Common Core at the high… Read more »