So as my expectations to recall and not forget material increases I am having to figure out how much beginning of the year review is really required. In my Geometry course I drive home notation (speaking the jaragon), distance, midpoint, lines, trig (including law of sine & cosine), area, volume and surface area. At the same time we have continued review of Algebra 1 topics such as elimination, substitution, radical reduction, abstract simplification/addition, exponents (all rules), factoring, solving 1st order equations, etc.
So my Algebra 2 text spends a lot of the first 100 pages reviewing some of the above and this year I have found the pace too easy. I had planned to hit only about 2/3 of the review material for daily work but that was too much. I adjusted somewhat quickly and moved faster, but hindsight is telling me I could have just done the entire front 1/4 of the book in the first 5 school days. This is a great discovery because it shows students are retaining the information and means I can add time and topics to this course.
(*The way I demand mastery in all my courses is recursive quizzes twice week, these quizzes are a substantial portion of the grade. The quizzes cover all prior knowledge in the course that is mastered and more importantly all things from previous courses. This makes the students use it so they don't lose it.*)
So now I need to look and decide the best way to proceed in the course, which is a good problem to have.....
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