I have been teaching Math for close to fifteen years now. I try hard to help students discover the processes on their own. I often balance between group exploration and individual practice. A daily class usually follows a set pattern.

1- A warm-up. This gets our brains waking. For this class the majority of our warm-ups will be practice problems from the SATs. It is well documented that the more one practices these questions the more successful they are on the actual test.

2- We look at our homework together.- I find homework and individual practice time invaluable in learning math. Since we often meet every other day, this practice time can help keep concepts fresh. During this time I help students through the night before's stumpers.

3- Our New concepts- Often a new concept is introduced through student exploration or math labs. We frequently design our own vocabulary and steps to understand processes.

4- Practice time- each class ends with time to explore the days new concept. I encourage students to help each other and work through problems together.

For statistics we will often very from this daily pattern. We will have a number of group and individual projects. Spastics lends itself well to hands on number crunching. We will do a number of math labs and poster presentations.