First, I will have the students watch this video to introduce the idea of imaginary numbers. Next we will go over a set of notes to explain the concept of imaginary numbers to them. These notes will also include practice problems that we will go over together. After the notes, students will then work on two practice problems by themselves, they will then be put into breakout rooms where they can discus what they got, and how they got it. For the knowledge check students will do a short MathXL assignment. Students can use the “view example” button on MathXL if they need help. If they need more help beyond the view example, they can then ask me. With a few minutes left of class I will ask students which questions on the assignment are they having difficulty with.
What part of your live lesson went well? Why?
Students seem to enjoy the video. Imaginary numbers are a strange concept for students to understand, mostly because of the unfortunate name. The video is engaging, does a great job of explaining why imaginary numbers are not actually imaginary.
What part of your live lesson could go better? Why?
Notes always seems to loose some students. With math it seems like notes and lecturing are a necessary evil. There’s just so much to explain, and much of it is not intuitive. Students don’t have a long attention span, and so keeping their attention during notes can be difficult.
Identify 1-2 areas where you think you can improve. What would you do differently next time?
Next time during notes I will try to do less example problems together so that they have more time working on problems themselves. Less time for notes and more time when they are doing something will also mean that they will be engaged longer.
