Nichole Oswald										
MED300 Journal 6									
Dates: 10/16/07 & 10/18/07

	This week at Lafayette was another enjoyable one.  Today however, the students did not seem to grasp the concept of writing equations in point-slope form.  It was very hard for them to see the connection between point-slope form and slope-intercept form.  I tried to make it clearer by connecting the 4 steps of problem solving (explore, plan, solve, evaluate)  to the question.  I thought that by doing this, the students would apply something that they already know how to something new.  Breaking down the problem  helped somewhat, but the students were still struggling.  with how to solve it.  I had to ask a lot of questions to get them on the right track, sometimes the same question needed to be rephrased two or three different times.  The important thing is that the students understand what they are doing.  If I have to rephrase the question five different times, that is what I will do if it helps them to understand.  A big problem that we were running into today was the students had a problem understanding how to divide by (x-3).  The equation was set up as follows: 2 =(y-4)/ (x-3), we want to solve for y.  The students wanted to multiply both sides by x and then add 3.  It was very hard for them to see that -3 was connected to the x and that they have to divide by the whole piece.  Even after we broke it down the students still didn't seem convinced that what we told them was true.  Dividing by (x-#) is something that we will definitely have to work on more next class.  
	 Once again we had the students going up to the board to work out problems and explain to the rest of the group how they got their answers.  Jose even came up to the board, which was quite a break through.  He usually sits by himself, doesn't want to do the work and just keeps to himself.  When the morning started we had 3 students.  They all sat in the same column of desks, with one desk in between each of them.  This was an akward arrangement to teach in, and none of the students were willing to move.  However after we started engaging them in the activities, they got up and moved to the front of the room on their own.  For me this was pretty exciting, because it showed me that they actually wanted to learn and were willing to try.