Math Competition Class

So since they are cutting my calculus class down to 5 periods a week to make room for a humanities class that means I would only teach 15 periods (periods are 45 mins.). My company requires that I teach at least 20 periods. So next year I will be teaching a math competition class. I will have the students solve problems from previous AMC tests to prepare for the AMC test in February. I will most likely meet each class for one period a week. So that will mean I am teaching 18 periods a week teaching math and then add the two periods a week that I am glee club adviser and I will be at 20 periods a week. I am hoping that it will be an optional course for my top students. The lower students will really struggle with the content and I will have trouble ensuring that they succeed.

I plan on having the students prepare for the AMC first semester and then prepare for the Euclid contest in March. I know students can get involved with writing the exams. I am not sure how that is done and will have to look into it. If so I will add that as part of my class and make an assignment to be write a question for the exam. I may still include the assignment of writing your own question even if I can't arrange to have the students take part in the writing of the exam.

Grade break down:
Final: 20%
Quizzes/Midterm: 30%
Presentations: 30%
Homework: 10%
In-class: 10%

For the final exam and midterm exam I will have to find some full exam of the test. I don't want to cobble together questions and want to save the sample questions for in-class use. I will have to look for an exam to use and write it after the AP test.

I was going to have one quiz a week so the students get practice on the questions. I will be using the Mathematical Association of America's archive of questions to make the quizzes. I was planning on using the sample brochure questions to make the quiz. They have about five questions that gives a good overview of the test. Here is one example. I will have to look at the scores at first, but I will have to find a curve to use. I assume that the students will struggle with these questions. I could give them the same amount of time on the quiz as they will on the test which is three minutes per question and then curve the quiz like crazy since they most likely not finish. That means about 15 minutes for the quiz which I can fit in each week. However I could give them 45 minutes to finish and might not have to curve it as much. So I could do it so I have a quiz every other week.

I was going to make this class presentation heavy since the class is just about solving questions to prepare for the exam. I thought about lecturing some myself, but since the topics that are presented are so wide and cover a lot of different things I wouldn't know where to start. I will use wolfram alpha articles to supplement students understanding. However I need something that can define advanced math topics in simple language since my students are in high school and second language learners. I might look into getting a copy of the textbook my professors use for Contemporary mathematics since that course covers a lot of random advanced math topics. So I think one week I will assign problems to pairs and let them work on it. They can discuss with me as they solve it. I will have students sign up for days they want to present at the end of calss. I will monitor how much work they get done and maybe give them another day in class to work on the problem. Then the next week I will have a quiz. Then the following week have presentations start. Then rotate between presentations and quizzes until we finish the presentations.

So 1-2 weeks spent preparing, then rotate the weeks between quiz and presentation for 7 weeks (based on having 28 students in a class). If I have a smaller class I will rotate between quizzes and presentations until presentations are done, then restart the cycle.

I was going to use the worksheet set of problems for presentations, for example this one. The questions are labeled with their difficulty at the bottom. If the class is required for all of my students then I will give the weaker students the easier problems and my stronger students the more difficult problems. If it is an optional course I may keep a record of who has presented what level of question. I will make sure students get chances at each type. If I can't find a full exam somewhere to use for my final and midterm then I will have to use these questions, but I really want to save these for presentations.

During presentations I will grade the group/individuals using the following rubrics.

General Rubric
Detailed Rubric

If I have a class of 28 I will do groups of two and I will grade each person individually doing my best going between the two different rubrics. If we make it optional and the class is really small I might have individual students present one problem. However those in the class will grade one of the individuals in the group using the rubric. I might also have some people in the audience circle one of the ten areas to improve from this article. Then I think I will make some sort of exit slip they have to fill out. I will check that they are giving good feedback and filling out all of these forms. They will get a score for the feedback that they provide and will be a part of their in-class grade.

I was not going to assign homework for this class, because I did not know what I would use for homework since I was using the worksheets for presentations. However someone from the Center for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) at the University of Waterloo spoke to my students. He mentioned a problem of the week that you can subscribe to. So I think I will assign the students the problem of the week as homework. I will require them to show any work that they can on the problems and that they don't have to get the right answer, but just try the problem. So to grade them I will quickly scan them to see that they have tried. I think it will be easy to see who tried and who didn't. For those who tried they will get a 5 and those who didn't will get a 4.

I am not sure whether I will give them the 9/10 or 11/12 question. I want to keep my grading load low so I don't want to assign two questions. I may just decide which question is more interesting or more linked with the AMC. This will be a course for 11th graders, but I worry about giving them that question because of their English level.

For the Euclid Contest/Second Semester:
I think for this there is enough questions in the archive to pull from for my midterm, final, quizzes, and presentations. Although there is a resource manual that I can buy to supplement the class and most likely use questions from it for quizzes if need be. I will have to talk to my school/company about getting that paid for by them. I could also buy it with my own money so the resource is mine to continue using. It is not too expensive.

I would still continue giving the students the problem of the week as homework in the second semester.

We are required to give the students homework over the Chinese new years vacation which is three weeks long. I may give them two problems to solve over that break both the problem of the week for the 9/10 grade and the problem of the week for the 11/12 grade.

Also the Euclid contest is in March. So I could include more Euclid stuff until the exam in March. I will have to give a full Euclid test before the actual one and will most likely have to schedule that in my own class time. I will have to talk to my principal after that. The Chinese system is still very test driven and my students may not enjoy the math unless there is a test waiting. We could work on writing and solving our own questions after the tests are over. The midterm and finals will land after the competition tests are over in the second semester. So for the midterm and final I could give them another test based off of questions from the archive even though they are done taking it. That will really effect the course.

So there is still a lot up in the air about this course. However I wanted to brain storm and get an idea for the general structure and get my resources for the course gathered together. A lot will have to be passed by my principal and the Chinese staff here at the school before anything is final. I am excited about it because I think it is going to be very interesting. I think for my stronger math students it might be the first time they are really and truly challenged. However they always seem to rise to the occasion and excel at any question I give them.