Pacing (part 2)

Well, we’ve been out of school almost ALL week for snow. Let me be the first to say that I LOVE snow days, but after about the 8th one, I begin to start panicking that I will not get everything covered before my students are tested. Anyone else feel me? With that said, what an appropriate time it is to give myself (and all of you out there reading) part two of my pep talk on pacing!

As you already know when I first started teaching with Carnegie I immediately became overwhelmed with getting through the textbook. Each lesson was taking two to three days and after spending the other two days a week in the lab I felt like I was only getting through one lesson a week. How would I ever get through everything by the end of the year?

Thank goodness there were several Carnegie veterans nearby that I wasn’t afraid to ask for help!! Here are three secrets they shared with me right off the bat that eased my mind and made “getting through it all” so much easier.

#1 You don’t have to do EVERY single part of EVERY single problem in the text. You would NEVER make your students do every single problem in any other Algebra textbook so why would you feel the pressure to do that with this text? When you are planning your chapters, first choose which problems your students cannot learn without, which ones you’d love for your students to try out and which ones are not as important for whatever reason. Next, work the problems you are going to ask your students to work. And as you work them choose which parts they need, which parts would be good if they got to see and which parts might not be as important for your classes. Throw out the stuff that’s not important to you and be flexible with what would be “nice” for them to see. If you have time, do it and if not, keep on trucking!

#2 Don’t stress over getting through the entire textbook. The Algebra I textbook wasn’t written in a way that if your students don’t get through the whole thing they won’t have learned Algebra. And the same goes with the Cognitive Tutor. Figure out which parts are parallel with your state standards and don’t worry about the rest. If you get there; great! Your students will be exposed to more, but if you don’t; that’s ok too.

#3 Most Carnegie lessons SHOULD take more than one day. I really wish someone had told me this before I had completed a whole year of teaching with it. I was so relieved to hear that it was ok that my lessons were taking longer than one day. So often the easiest thing for teachers to cut short because they feel the lesson is taking too long is student presentation. PLEASE don’t do that. I’ll talk to you more later about why student presentation is so important, but trust me, cutting that part out because you think you’re wasting time is a big mistake.

Well, I feel better already, don’t you! And whether we have another snow day tomorrow or not, we’ll get through the important stuff; no doubt!