Mr. Hondorf's Homepage

Welcome to Pre-Algebra

  As the new school year begins, everyone needs to know and understand class expectations and daily required materials.

Materials:

The following materials will be required on a daily basis, ready to use at the beginning of class.

Sharpened Pencil (or Mechanical with lead)
Blank Loose Leaf Paper
Book
Math Spiral
Colored Pencils (Dark - normally used for showing correcting)
Calculator that can do fractions

Expectations:

Most classes will consist of several components: a starter, group discussion/lesson and independent working time. You will be expected to be prepared with class materials ready at the beginning of class.
  The starter can include review problems from previous homework, checking the preceding nights homework or a quiz. Vocabulary can and will be included on quizzes.
  During the group discussion/lesson problems will be discussed. They can include real world applications of different types of math problems, presentation of new or different types of problems and "challenge" problems. Challenge problems are problems that will be introduced one day and then re-examined again several days later after allowing time to think and work on with both the solution and the method(s) of solving.
  Independent working time will be given at the end of a period (some days) to allow students to practice the skills from class. During this time students may begin (sometimes finish) homework assignments. Studying is expected to be completed on a daily basis.

Homework:

 Homework is given on an almost daily basis. If a student has completed written work at school, they should spend some time studying on their own. If a student forgets their book, they can log onto the site www.tn.msmath3.net using the name and password given out in class. Completing and emailing several of the self check quizzes to coach Hondorf is recommended throughout each chapter.

Tests:

Tests will be given at the end of every chapter. A sample test will be assigned as homework two days prior to the test day. A day will be spent reviewing before each test. Students are expected to learn vocabulary on their own, words will be discussed in class as needed. Studying on a daily basis is expected. There will be a quarterly exam.

Grades:

The class will be graded on a point system. Each homework assignment that is graded will be worth 20 points, quizzes will be worth 50 points and tests worth 100 points. Projects will be assigned throughout the year, their point value will be announced at the beginning of the project, ranging from 20 to 100 points. The minimum grade for any completed class or homework assignment will be 10 (out of 20).

TCAP:

TCAP exams are currently scheduled for the weeks of April 14th - 18th, 2008.

Questions:

Questions concerning topics can be asked during class. If extra help is needed please do not hesitate to ask whether it is during class, lunch or after school. E-mail ( lhondorf@clevelandschools.org ) is another way to ask questions. Concerns about grades will be handled on an individual basis, rather than during class.

Points:

The grades in this class will be determined by a point system as stated earlier. To calculate your current grade, you need to keep up with past grades in your agenda. An easy way to do this is to keep two running totals in your agenda. The first is the number of points that you have earned, the second is the total number of points possible. To find your average, simply divide the two numbers. An example is worked out below.

On Monday, a perfect homework grade is earned,
for a grade of 20 points (out of 20 points possible).		 On Tuesday, nothing was graded. So the points stay the same. On Wednesday, a homework grade of 18 points (out of 20) is earned. The new running totals are 38 (what points have earned) out of 40 (total points possible) On Thursday another perfect homework score of 20 points is earned, so the running score is 58 (earned points) out of 60 (total points possible.) On Friday's quiz, only 46 points (out of 50) are earned, so the running total is 104/110.
  This running total is easy to keep, and the students can then update their average on any given day. Simply divide the first number by the second to find the average. On Monday and Tuesday the average was 100, on Wednesday the average dropped to a 95. On Thursday the current average (your grade to date) was 96.6, while on Friday it was a 94.5. This allows the student to know their current average on any given day. As a student, you need to keep up with your own average. This will be reviewed several weeks into the year to allow questions to be answered as needed.