From: Claudia (for Teacher2Teacher Service)
Date: Aug 11, 1998 at 20:56:57
Subject: Re: Teaching math in a traditional 7 period day

You are certainly in a very "different" situation from most folks. Usually,
people are worried about teaching the block, rather than the traditional.

More than anything, you will need to test the "time limits."  You will
assign activities in "smaller" chunks.  Think about the fact that what took
you two days of lessons is now going to take you five???? If you were doing
a data collection experiment, it might mean that one day is spent setting up
the basic math ideas, the next class the students actually collect the
data...then the third, they analyze, and the fourth they make predictions
and discuss conclusions. They synthesize. You have an extra day for more
practice or extensions or connections into the next topic.

Obviously if an activity took you more than 55 minutes, you will have to
rethink how to accomplish the task.  Perhaps team members can have different
duties so that preparation time is cut shorter.  If you used the entire time
for testing, this will be your biggest adjustment.  Sometimes, testing is
hard to gauge especially, as you know, each class tends to have its own
personality!

Hope this helps!

 -Claudia, for the Teacher2Teacher service

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