It all adds up for beginning students

Mr. Paul Meihaus spends his day teaching students in Math 1 and has developed a routine that works for his students.

In the beginning of his class, students take out their pencils and receive a paper for the warm-ups. Sometimes there’ll be chaos, but the routine helps students to focus. When the students are seated quietly, doing their warm-ups, Mr. Meihaus comes around to help those who need assistance in preparing for an upcoming math test.

In Math 1 Class with Mr. Meihaus students are learning about different slope lines such as linear, exponential, quadratic, absolute value, and discrete value. Another thing that students are learning is arithmetic sequences and geometric sequences which are finding terms like -20, -60, -180, and finishing off the numbers by finding what’s the common ratio (r=) or common difference( d=). About 80% of the time is spent taking notes and copying down information so that they can understand the concepts and be able to show that they understand those concepts.

When Mr. Meihaus has finished sharing instructions and the students are finished taking notes, he assigns equations or other math problems to see if students understand what they were just taught. When there’s enough time in class and students are done with all their math work, the teacher will give students time to pack up and just relax/have free time. During this time, students will be free to ask questions, get help about what they learned, do any missing assignments in other classes, or finish their notes as necessary.