-
Pacing
Sometimes the most difficult part of planning to teach is determining the pace.
The normal answer from many teaching in Texas is to use the Scope in Sequence provided by TEKS Resource. The problem is that does not really work for every group of students. It is crucial for the students that every TEKS (standard) is covered in Algebra 1 because they are tested at the end of the year and must pass the test to graduate (in 3 more years). This year, my classes have many students who can learn all of the material, just not at that pace. I am faced with decisions about what if really important and what can they get by without learning this year. This is my greatest challenge at the moment. -
1 Reply
-
@marcella.curry This is a big struggle that we have to consider on a daily basis. Long range plans help reduce the stress here, but like you said, students don’t learn exactly on pace all of the time.
When we switched to having students work through problem based lessons before the “note” we realized that they many of them knew skills we were planning on “teaching”. Starting with problems act as a kind of diagnostic assessment. You may find that you can eliminate some lessons or spend more / less time than originally planned.
