December Classes

We only have classes the first two weeks in December. I need the rest of the unit exams turned in! Last week we watched a couple of lectures from the Teaching Company on Fibonacci Numbers and Golden Rectangles. We will watch a couple more lessons in that series this week.

After this week, we will start classes again on Tuesday, January 5. We should be restarting Geometry VideoText then. (If you haven't ordered Module B student books, I wouldn't at this point. We'll see how it goes when we start it again...)

November Notes

We are done with class until the beginning of December (then there will be 2 classes in December).

I would like them to show up at class in December with the following problems from the Test from the end of Module A done: Problems 1 - 35, 39, 41, and 44. The rest are NOT required! The test starts on page 159. Let me know if you have any questions.

Oct 27

We watched 3 lessons again in class today -- Part E, Lessons 1 & 2 and Part F, Lesson 1. We did the homework from the first two lessons in class. This week's homework is to do the exercises from Part F, Lesson 1.

Oct 20 Class - Important Notes

Well, my plans have changed again. Hopefully this is the right decision. I was all ready to change programs entirely. I sent an email this morning to the Geometry VideoText folks asking about their refund policy. Much to my surprise, Mr. Clark, the author of the program, called me over lunch. We talked about what the issues were and he explained that the initial parts of the program are only intended as an introduction to Geometry...They aren't meant to be understood completely...And the associated homework and quizzes for the initial lessons is not that critical...Other than being frustrated that we didn't know that 6 weeks ago, I found that information to be very encouraging.

I would like to keep trying the program for a little while longer, with some modifications to how much homework we worry about. So for what we have done before this week, we will consider all of the quizzes and homework we were all worrying about to be totally optional....Obviously if someone is doing it and understanding it, that is not a problem. But we will be more selective about what homework is actually assigned from here on out.

Today we finished Lesson 1, Unit C -- no homework from any of that. We discussed it briefly in class, and we're moving on to some more important things.

And we watched Unit D, Lessons 1 & 2. We did the homework from Lesson 1 in class. So for next week there is 1 page of homework -- page 84. (We did page 83 in class.) That's it. Hopefully that is a more reasonable amount, and we can move on to some more critical (and hopefully more understandable) parts of the program!

Any questions, let me know.

Heads Up for Oct 20 Class

We're going to try a different direction -- the DVDs we're currently using are driving almost EVERYONE crazy! This week we will try A Beka's Geometry book and see if that goes better. Don't worry, I should have enough books for everyone (no charge).

I'm sorry that we've spent so long on the other program, I really thought it would get better.

Oct 13 Class

We watched the DVD for lessons Part C, Lessons 4 (area of trapezoids),5 (area of regular polygons), and 6 (area of circles).

By next week, Homework should be done through those lessons, Part C, Lesson 6 and quizzes should be done through Part C, Lesson 3.

Quizzes and Tests

Sorry for any confusion: For those of you who bought the Test/Quiz book, it contains a Form A and a Form B for each Quiz and Test. The students ONLY need to do the Form A of each.

Oct 6 Class

Yes, we will be doing Geometry on Oct 6, during "Fall Break": But since there were so few students, we used the time as a catch up time. We did not continue forward with any additional lessons.

September 29 Class

Today we watched the DVD for Part B, Lesson 4 and Part C, Lessons 1 - 3.

Today's Homework:
Exercises for Part B, Lesson 4 and Part C, Lessons 1 - 3
2 more Quizzes: Part B, Lesson 1 and Part B, Lesson 2 & 3 (together)

Try to get caught up on the quizzes. Next week I will be grading the 6 quizzes assigned so far: all of those through the end of Part A, and the 1st 2 in Part B.

Sept 22 Class

We reviewed Part A Lesson 5 (lots of students were having trouble with that lesson).

Then we watched the DVD for Part B, Lessons 1 - 3.

Homework:
Exercises for Part B, Lessons 1 - 3.

Try to get caught up on the quizzes. (By next week, students should be done with 4 Quizzes, all of those through the end of Part A.)

Geometry Class – Sept 15

Today:
We reviewed the 1st 3 lessons and then watched the video for lessons 4 & 5.

Homework for next week’s class:
*Do the homework for Lessons 4 & 5
*Take the 1st 2 quizzes (Quiz Form A for Lessons 1 & 2 and Quiz Form A for Lesson 3)

Week 1

We covered the 1st 3 lessons today. Lesson 1’s homework was done orally. By time they come to class next week, students should be finished with the homework on page 6 for Lesson 2 (page 5 was also done orally). They should also work on the exercises for Lesson 3, pages 12 and 13.

I will be available on Tuesdays after class (from 4 to 5) if anyone needs help, and on Wednesdays from 12 to 1 and from 4 to 5.

Next week the plan is to do the tests from today’s lessons, and the next 3 lessons.

Basic Info for this Year's Class

Class: Geometry

Instructor: Catherine Jaime
Grades/Ages: High School
Day: Tuesdays (beginning 2nd Tuesday in September)
Time: 2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

Class Description: We will be using GeometryVideoText for this. The plan is to get through the first 3 modules (A, B, C) this school year. In order to do that, we will need to average 3 lessons/week. It will be an agressive schedule, but if students keep up on their homework, and attend classes regularly they should be able to keep up.

Fees: After purchasing the program, I have had to change the fees slightly for this program. I apologize for any inconvenience. I had planned to charge a registration fee to help cover the costs of the program, but families are going to need to purchase the student materials themselves, so I am raising the monthly cost to $25(instead of $20) and dropping the registration fee.

During the course of the school year, each student will need the Student WorkText and the Progress Tests ($20 each for each of the 3 levels). They also recomend the Course Notes, but that is up to you. You may want to look at mine before you decide. ($17 for each level). It should take us about 2 1/2 months to go through each level, if you want to space out those purchases. You will need to go to the VideoText website to order the materials: http://www.videotext.com/catalog.htm. Scroll down to where it says Extra Materials. Be sure to order the Geometry and not the Algebra! (I considered ordering them as a group, but the prices on the website include shipping, so it wouldn't save us anything.)

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Catherine at: cmmjaime@alum.mit.edu or 325-3305.