Hitting All Eight

Lesson Planning... about that.  Yeah, it's gotta be different, too.  With all the change that needs to take place in the classroom this year, that means the ol' lesson plans need to be adjusted as well.  Knowing I will be asking others how the 8 Mathematical Practices from the Common Core Standards (from here on out will be henceforth abbreviated 8MP) are demonstrated in each lesson, I am making it a point to make sure I can point out where the 8MP show up in my lesson.  Here's the thing, not all 8 are in every lesson.  Nor, do I think I can always achieve all 8 into every lesson.  Or can I?  Sigh.  The more I study the 8MP the more I think I can incorporate them all to some degree.  I just have to get out my own way.  I need to revise lesson plans from previous years to allow the students to reach my goal.  Far too often, I was comfortable spouting off info and happy if some of it stuck.  Now, I can't be satisfied with that anymore.  It's not what is good for kids.  It's NOT what's right for kids.

I was doubting myself that I couldn't include all eight.  I had this fear that the only way to achieve this would be to have some problem for the kids to work through, struggle through, and reason through to come out on the other end with a nice formula and complete understanding of it.  I am beginning to rethink that.  Sure it is a great model to use at least once a unit.  But I need to hit it everyday and I don't have a nicely packaged fabricated story problem for every day.  I am stressing about this.  However, I am going to type up my plans with the goal in mind of hitting all 8 tonight.  Pre-calculus will be studying functions this week, specifically what is a function tomorrow.  And Algebra 2 needs to learn how determine domain and range from a graph and write it in interval notation.  I've got an 80's marathon of music playing on the radio.  I'm going to bang out these lesson plans and measure it against the 8MP. 

Ya know, sometimes just getting my thoughts together on a topic is therapeutic.  It's just the self-motivation I need to get me through it.  Rock on fellow bloggers.