Important Notice for Your Parent/Guardians

The letter below was emailed to many of your parent/guardians. Some did not have an email address, some of you gave me incorrect email addresses and some parent/guardians have not responded to me.

It is YOUR JOB as students to make your parent/guardian aware of this opportunity. If you are reading this note, please let your folks know. ALSO, please call/text everyone you know in class so that they can check this note as well.

Thank you!... Mr. C.
======================================= 
Dear Parents of Algebra 1 Honors Students,

 

Your children received their results back this morning from their Unit 1 "Fundamentals of Algebra" test. There were some good scores but I have the sense that no one was satisfied with their grade/performance. I explained to your children that I have seen this before... I have had many very successful honors math students struggle "out of the gate."  I have confidence that they can all do well, however it will take a major commitment of time and effort on their part. I assured them that even the lowest scorers on this test (oops, the F's were in a "misery loves company" scenario) can earn their way back to the "A" range.

 

I let the students know that this was NOT their final grade for this assessment. It is more important to me that your child:

1) Learns from this experience

2) Understands how to "bounce back"

3) Masters the content/material

4) Learns how to learn!

 

Welcome to their "miserable math" weekend. They understand that in addition to their current homework they are to supply me with a complete set of test corrections for each problem that they got wrong.  They need to take separate blank sheets of notebook paper and redo each incorrect problem step-by-step. Additionally, they need to provide me with a brief explanation of what they did wrong or how they misinterpreted the problem. I have found this "meta-cognitive" practice (thinking about their thinking) to be very useful in learning from mistakes.

 

I would like to invite you to an informal parent meeting on this Monday, Oct 10th from 6:45am - 7:30am in my classroom (220) at FMS.  I had wanted to do this a couple of weeks ago, but time got away from me. This meeting will be focused on the overall Algebra 1 Honors experience rather than a rehash of the Unit 1 Test results. I feel that you should have a sense of the challenge and workload that are before your children. I also want you to be fully aware of the tools, beyond classroom instruction, that are available to your students.

 

Please RSVP by replying to this note, whether or not you will attend on Monday morning. If you would like to set up an individual conference that's fine, but I would still appreciate if you could come to this "class overview" meeting.

 

Sincerely,

Mr. Chamberlain