One Quarter Down...3 more to Go!!!

Well at the end of this coming week our 1st Grading Quarter will be in the books.  Now for the first round of Parent/Teacher Conferences.  This year my collaborative teacher and I have decided to have our students lead the conferences.  They have been charting their test scores, been presented with their benchmark pre-test results and how to read them, been given projects to accomplish all leading up to helping them become more invested and engaged in their own education.  I am crossing my fingers that this will work out as well as we as their teachers want.  We are also doing collaborative conferences, where we both meet with the parents & students at the same time.  How do you handle your conferences?  Are they student led, or do you advise the parents about their student's growth with the student commenting when appropriate?  Those of you who do student led conferences -- how successful are they in helping them understand and be accountable for their learning and academic growth?

Along with the quarter coming to a completion, come my first observation of the year.  In our school district teachers are observed 4 times a year.  Twice by school administration and twice by the County Education department.  I decided for my observation I am going to be teaching on Understanding Division by Fractions.  I found this wonderful resource that I am using to help my students get a better understanding of the process before teaching the traditional way with reciprocals.  This is essential since having a better understand why will assist in the comprehension of the process and comprehension of the content.  Here is the link I found for the resource.

https://www.oercommons.org/media/upload/authoring/4602/documents/Common%20Core%20Math%20Grade%206%20Division%20with%20Fractions.pdf

You can find the student practice work to go along with the lesson on my printables/templates tab.  I am so excited.  Especially since seeing a model first hand will help them understand visually what they are doing.  I really hope this will help my students gain a better understanding and perspective of dividing fractions by fractions using this process, which technically is review, first.  Wish me luck on my score results on my observation.  I will let you know about the outcome soon.

Have fun & stay sane!!!