Population Growth Project

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Week 1	Anchor Video and review of different functions	Finishing reviewing different functions -- Memory Matrix	Buzz bugs activity (activity portion) -- Buzz Bug Worksheets (CAT) -- Homework	Continue Buzz bugs activity (discussion portion) -- “Big Paper” -- Quiz (CAT)	Simulation day on Computers -- Direct Paraphrasing
Week 2	Birth rate lesson	Death rate lesson -- Pro and Con Grid	Discuss wars/plagues and how they effect population	Exponential growth and decay functions lesson -- Informative Assessments -- Homework (CAT)	Continuation from Thursday -- Informative Assessments
Week 3	Buzz bugs decay activity (activity portion)	Buzz bugs decay activity (discussion) -- Process Analysis	Discussion of cause and effects of population changes in real world -- Self-confidence survey	Final Project (where students chose two countries and compare their populations and decide which one will overpopulate first)	Work on Final Project (research) --Concept Map
Week 4	Work on Final Project	Work on Final Project	Finish Work and prepare for presentations	Final Presentations -- Presentation is Assessment --also Directed Paraphrasing (CAT)	Final Presentations

Week 1 – Tuesday:

Memory Matrix – The memory matrix is a two-dimensional diagram of rows and columns used to organize information and show relationships. The memory matrix would be perfect to use at the end of the second day where students would have to
relate the different types of functions they just reviewed. They would have
to know the qualities the functions poses and the type of x values that
would be found in the functions. This would be a very quick assessment that I could look over that night (after the second day) to see if there was something I need to touch on a little more or maybe even go over totally again.

Week 1 -- Wednesday:

Buzz Bug Worksheets – For assessing course-related learning and study skills, strategies, and behaviors -- process analysis. For the buzz bugs activity where they develop an equation that represents an exponential growth model. I would require them to keep a record of their work processes and to describe those processes as an assessment technique.

Homework Day 1-- consists of questions that evaluate the students on the Buzz Bugs Activity (i.e. growth rate, y-intercept, range, domain, and function of Buzz Bugs data)

Week 1 -- Thursday:

Pieces of “Big Paper” -- they will collect their data of the Buzz Bugs Activity, organize it. We will evaluate them on if they can come up with a formula that represents their model population, and also estimate what the 12^th toss population will be. This will help us to see if they are grasping exponential functions or not.

Quiz – For assessing skill in application and performance -- student-generated quiz questions. Present them with an assignment that states they must generate 3 questions of their own with a couple guidelines that they feel they can successfully assess the class with.

Week 1 – Friday:

Direct Paraphrasing – One day during the unit the students do a lesson where they work with computer simulations. By directed paraphrasing the students could collect
their ideas and what they learned to write it down at the end of the lesson.
This would not only give proof to the teacher that they actually worked
during the period but it would also be a way for the students to generalize
everything that went on the class period into a single paragraph, which they
could potentially look back on.**

Week 2 – Tuesday:

Pro and Con Grid – During a two day lesson, the students are given a bunch of information and data on several different countries, for instance, their population, land
area, agricultural land, and more. These are all factors that plan a role in
the population on the country. This lesson was given to introduce the
students to what they should be looking for and analyzing during their own
unit project. Now the pro and con grid would force students to look at both
sides of each of the countries and not just focus on their original believes
of them. This would make them think more in depth about the information
presented and actually form their own thoughts about them.

Week 2 -- Thursday:

Informative Assessments – (the engagement) – asks students to give the domain and range and identify the graphs on the overhead. This will assess their prior knowledge, if any of the material.

Homework – For assessing skill in problem solving -- documented problem solutions. Selecting two or three real-world problems that relate to exponential growth and decay; I would solve it myself and write down step-by-step solutions. I then would hand them out and give the class a whole class period to work on them.

Week 2 -- Friday:

Informative Assessments – (the evaluation) – as a class we will work with graphing calculators and I will evaluate their knowledge gained by asking them as a group many questions as we work through the graphing calculator assignment.

Week 3 – Tuesday:

Process Analysis -- I think that of these 4 assessment techniques, Process Analysis would be the one I would pick to use in my unit. I think that having students write down the process both in the lesson where they create their own model for exponential decay and when working on the final project would help students learn how to formalize their thinking and see where they might have possibly gone wrong. It would also be helpful to use while students are working in groups on the project to see if every group member is on the same page as the others.

Week 3 – Wednesday or Thursday :

Self-confidence surveys -- I would say course-related self-confidence surveys would be the best of these choices to use in my unit. I would hand out the survey to students about half-way through the unit and place them in groups accordingly based on the responses to the survey. I would place confident speakers in a group to keep each other in check and keep one person from doing all the talking within the group and presenting to the class. I would place shy people in the groups with other shy people so that they are forced to gain more experience and confidence in talking with colleagues and presenting in front of the class.

Week 3 – Friday:

Concept Map -- At the end of our unit students are going to be working on a major project. Having them complete a concept map at the beginning of that to kind of organize their thoughts and summarize what they have learned in the lessons would be good. Students could be free to use whatever format for a concept map they feel works best.

Week 4 – Thursday:

Directed Paraphrasing -- I think that it is very good for students to be able to understand the material well enough to be able to break it down into simpler terms that can be understand by a wide audience. I think that “directed paraphrasing” can be used in my unit when students are presenting their final projects. It can be made a requirement that they present to a younger audience (or pretend if one is not available) and thee younger audience will rate how well they were able to understand each group.