There were gains from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment.  The gains were not significant in the class averages because there were four students who received scores of zero in the pre and post-assessment.  The students who did not receive a score higher than zero informs me that there is something I missed with these students.  I think that looking at this unit and the students' grades informs me that these students need extra support that I did not give them.  I could incorporate a review activity that reviews all the figures and how to calculate the area given the dimensions, and review how to calculate the missing dimension when given the area and other dimension.  I could use different formative assessments that targeted each student's understanding, rather than looking at the class in general.

I think that the students learned how to calculate the area of specific figures and that there were still some misconceptions and misunderstandings when looking at the post-assessments.  I noticed that students were not clear on identifying the correct base and height for a parallelogram, triangle, and trapezoid if there were numbers that marked the sides.  It is evident on the Area Quizzes as well.  I did not address this is class, and if I was continuing teaching the class I would put up examples on the board and ask students to identify the base and height.  

Reflecting back on the unit there are several things that I would change about how I taught the unit. I would incorporate activities that uses cooperative learning as well as direct instruction.  I would also go over the homework problems to support students in doing the homework for understanding and practice.  I started off putting too many activities, and then I did not put enough activities.  I think that I could plan an extra activity, but that does not mean I have to cover it.  The extra activity is used if there is extra time, and it helps review the lesson from the day.  If I went back to teaching at North in the Geometry class I would clarify the steps in solving and calculating the area of each shape.  In my mind it was clear how to solve and calculate the areas or missing dimensions, which is not necessarily clear to the students.  I would give them a step by step explanation to teach them how to calculate the areas and missing dimensions.  The steps could be made in a graphic organizer that students could refer to in their notebook.  I also think that giving students time to self-correct their wrong problems would be beneficial as well.  I tried reviewing the quizzes with the students, but I did not have them correct their answers and learn what mistakes they made.  I also tried using an "Area Toolkit," but that did not go as well as I thought it would have.  Next time I would have the students make the Area Toolkit as a review at the end of the unit, and have them come up with examples on their own instead of providing it for them.  

In conclusion, the data and observations on the students informed me that there were confusion with which area formula to use, misconceptions on identifying height and base in the figures, and misunderstanding in calculating missing dimensions.  These misconceptions and misunderstandings are not surprising, and they need to be addressed.   Also in the feedback form the students I learned that majority of the students believe math is important for their future, school is important for their future, and they want to continue school after high school.  Knowing now that almost the whole class thinks math and school is important I would not take their comments in class as seriously as I did.  I would like to challenge them to work harder and remind them that it is important and they told me that they believe it is important.