Leading the Way

I think I've mentioned in earlier posts that one period of my day is a middle school transition class. The goal to to prepare the students (who are old enough to be in high school but for one reason or another haven't finished middle school) to be high school students next year. I'm using the Carnegie Bridge to Algebra program to help them with their math skills. At first I thought I would be doing a traditional combination of the Carnegie text and Cognitive Tutor. It turns out however, that my students are really flying on the tutor. They have been doing so well on the tutor that the past two weeks we have only gone to the lab. The class is very small. There are eight students so usually I can find a way to squeeze us into a lab. With only eight of them I've been able to really work with them one on one with the areas they are struggling with. One of the students has already completed half of the Bridge software! All of the students came from different schools and had different teachers in the past. Using the software has been the great equalizer. Students who have had experience with a particular topic move past it quickly while those who need extra practice get it until they master it. They have been pretty competitive with one another about their progress. They are helping each other when they get to a new section and lately students who are further along are doing most of the teaching to the students that are slightly behind. It's amazing to see what a collaborative community they have created even while in the lab. I'm excited to see how well these students will do next year when they are in my Algebra 1 class. I can see that these students who before claimed to be bad at math are going to be leaders next year. Wow what a positive experience this had turned out to be for both myself and these students!